


i am the wolf, she is the moon

by prettyaveragewhiteshark



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asami Equalist AU, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Equalist Au, Equalist!Asami, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/F, I can't help who I am as a person, I will add any trigger warnings re: abuse in the chapter summary, Implied/Referenced Abuse, It's gonna be a bumpy ride, Korrasami - Freeform, Slow Burn, all aboard the angst train to heartache town, and we're gonna LOVE IT, equalist Asami, just so much angst, let's get this bread, so we're all just gonna suffer together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 09:28:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 55,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26849680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyaveragewhiteshark/pseuds/prettyaveragewhiteshark
Summary: Asami Sato is an Equalist, bound to the cause to avenge the death of her mother. She has been singled out by Amon for a special mission - befriend the Avatar, pinpoint her weaknesses, and help bring her down once and for all.A/N: For the purposes of this fic and bc there's gonna be sexy times, all characters have been aged up to be 20+ years old
Relationships: Korra & Asami Sato, Korra/Asami, Korra/Asami Sato, Korrasami, korra x asami
Comments: 149
Kudos: 702





	1. Chapter 1

The Avatar has come to Republic City. We’re all listening as her voice crackles in over the radio, responding to the live questions from the press conference downtown. Her voice is bright and hopeful. I have never heard her speak, but I recognize her immediately somehow. The sound of her voice makes my skin prickle, the blood rush to my ears. Every nerve is suddenly on end. The Lieutenant snaps the radio off. I turn to look at Amon. He doesn’t move, arms clasped behind his back as he reviews the plans board.

The Avatar. We hadn’t expected her arrival so soon. The last we’d heard, Councilman Tenzin was scheduled to be in the Southern Water Tribe to assist with her training. It would have given us more time to destabilize Republic City before the Avatar was at full strength. But now she’s here, several years too early. There’s electricity in my veins. This could mean war. Perhaps this little game of attrition is at its end. Perhaps it's time to show this city what we’re truly capable of. 

“Amon, how do you want to handle this?” the Lieutenant asks.

“So, the Avatar has arrived early,” Amon responds, his gravelly voice perfectly even. “It looks like we’ll have to accelerate our plans.”

He begins shifting the various markers on the board, illustrating the new timeline in a few deft moves. I follow his movements, taking in the information as a new plan unfolds. Not all out war, not yet. A revamped guerilla fight. The reveal of Amon’s powers is moved to three weeks from now. The pro-bending championship only two months down the road will be the new venue for his outright declaration of war. 

Listening to him speak, it’s as if he knew this change was coming all along. He’s completely unflappable in the face of the unexpected. He is cool and unmoved and utterly terrifying. The energy in the room is surging like a wave. We are all raised hackles on the back of a slavering beast. We are all hungry, and our prey has just entered the hunting grounds. 

Amon finishes his brief and dismisses the room, directing us all to disseminate the new plan to the various Equalist strongholds around the city. I rise to leave, but there’s a touch on my arm at the door. It’s the Lieutenant. He tilts his head toward Amon. 

“He wants a word,” he says. 

This is a surprise, but I don’t question it. I wait until the Lieutenant has closed the door behind him, then move to stand behind Amon. 

“Sir?”

“I have a special mission for you, Asami. Are you ready to serve?”

When he says my name, it cuts through the thrill of the Avatar’s arrival like a punch in the gut. I shouldn’t be surprised - Amon seems to know everything somehow. There’s whispers in the Equalist ranks that he’s a psychic, a mind-reader, and that’s how he can take away people’s bending. I don’t buy it, but it’s undeniable how eerie and unnatural his reach seems to be. The fact that he’s able to recognize me under the uniform is particularly unnerving. 

“Of course,” I respond.

“Good.” He turns, leveling his gaze toward me. Something about his look makes me feel pierced through. I know he can’t see past the reflective yellow lenses in the mask, but I force myself to keep eye contact with him anyway. “You and the young Avatar are approximately the same age. As a newcomer to the city, she’ll want friends. I want you to be one of them.”

I hear the words, but it takes me a moment to process them. I’ve imagined doing many things to the Avatar - fighting, maiming, and killing are at the top of the list - but befriending her? I had hoped he would ask me to be at his side at the moment he stole her bending, or to head an operation to kidnap her in the night and bring her in chains to face justice. I would leap at any chance to crush her beneath my heel, but becoming friends with my greatest enemy is unthinkable. 

“I understand this is a strange request,” Amon says, as if reading my thoughts. “But I can assure you it is vital. We cannot trust a bender such as Councilman Tenzin to allow us any sort of insight into her schedule, bending prowess, etcetera. But a close friend, one who can invite her to one-on-one outings where she may be vulnerable, or who can gain a personal perspective on exactly how much training she has to do before she’s at her full power - that would prove truly invaluable at this crucial moment.”

I don’t answer. He’s right, of course he’s right, I _know_ he’s right, but the thought of it makes me sick. I’ve had to be around benders my whole life, just like everyone else, and I’ve learned how to be cordial, how to keep them at arm’s length, how to stay aloof enough that none of them try to get close after a while. I’ve prided myself on my ability to, in a world swarming with benders, have no benders who would consider themselves my friend. And now I have to undo all of that hard work and buddy up to the bender of benders, the Avatar herself. I can feel my blood get hot. I want to refuse, I want to demand a different mission. Anything for the cause, anything but this. 

My hesitation is a mistake. Amon whirls on me, closing the distance between us with a single step. It takes all of my strength of will not to take a step back, to put distance between myself and his imposing presence, but I still feel myself flinch. 

“I understand your mother was killed by benders,” he says without preamble. 

The reminder closes around my throat. I can still see her body, collapsed at the bottom of the stairs. I can still hear my father’s agonized screams. 

“Yes,” is all I can say. 

“Undermining the Avatar, being a key player in destroying the most powerful bender in the world, is the best way I can think of to avenge your mother’s death. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes,” I say again. I try put my mother out of my mind. Her corpse still burns behind my eyes. “You can count on me.”

“Good,” he growls. “Report back to me once you’ve made contact with the Avatar. I’ll be interested in hearing your progress.”

I leave the hideout, my head buzzing as I strip off my uniform and steal into the darkened streets. Ordinarily I’d head home, but I can’t tonight. I know my father will want to know what news came out of the meeting, and I’m not ready to talk to him about what’s happened. He’ll try to interfere, tell me the best way to track the Avatar down, how I should conduct myself around her to make my lie more convincing, try to commandeer my mission for his own gain just as he’s done with every other aspect of my life ever since mom died. I’ll take solitude instead. 

I start up my car, letting out a breath I didn’t know I was holding as the engine roars to life. The thoughts roll away like a mist before a sudden wind as I throw it into gear and peel out from the curb. The wind tears my hair away from my face, cooling where the uniform had left traces of sweat across my cheeks and neck. It’s late and the streets are empty, whipping past in shadowy streaks. The buildings shrink and vanish in the darkness. I drive far enough to leave the city behind, climbing winding roads up into the mountains that form the crescent around Republic City’s borders. I pull over on a gravel turn-out overlooking the city. 

It stretches out below me in a blanket of glittering lights, reflecting in waving lines onto the water of the bay. Further out stands the statue of Avatar Aang, looking like a toy figurine at this distance. Beyond that sits Air Temple Island, softly lit and unassuming. I know the Avatar is there now, likely sleeping peacefully, resting for the next day’s training. 

Does she know? Does she know the pain her kind have caused the rest of us? Does she know about the monster she has created? Does she know that every move she makes will be watched from the shadows? Does she know we’re coming for her? She sleeps under the watchful gaze of the Avatar who came before her, the one who ended the 100 Year War. He was hailed as a hero, but he was no different than the rest of them. If there had never been benders, there never would have been the 100 Year War.

My heart constricts painfully. If there had never been benders, I would still have a mother. 

The Avatar is meant to bring balance. Balance. The concept is laughable. There is no balance in a world where benders exist. There is no balance in a world where the rest of us have to live in fear of angering the wrong bender and ending up dead. There is no balance in a world where non-benders have to work ten times as hard to protect themselves from the power of benders. 

So many times I’ve thought of coming face-to-face with the Avatar, of blacking out her chi, rendering her just as powerless as I was the day my mother died, listening to her plead for her life, watching her lose that which is most precious to her. Even as I think of it now, my stomach twists in satisfaction.

I close my eyes, let the high, cool mountain air drape itself around my shoulders. I have a new job to do, one that will fail if I live on thoughts devoted to the Avatar’s suffering. I cannot fail. I won’t. The Avatar will never have a dearer, more trusted friend than me. I will make her understand the meaning of safety. And then. And then. When my work is done, and I have hand-delivered the Avatar into Amon’s waiting grasp, and he has taken away her bending and fulfilled his purpose, maybe he’ll let me kill her myself. 

The thought puts a smile on my face. 


	2. Chapter 2

She isn’t hard to find. I would have thought that the Avatar’s primary mission would be relentless training on Air Temple Island to get herself to full bending strength as quickly as possible. But it’s only been two days since my conversation with Amon, and I’m in a bar, trying to tune out the broadcast of tonight’s pro-bending match crackling through the radio behind the bar when the announcer’s commentary goes from quippy to dumbfounded, catching my attention. 

_ “Ladies and gentlemen,” _ he says,  _ “I can’t believe it, but it looks like the Avatar herself is playing for the Fire Ferrets!” _

I almost choke on my drink. The last two days I’ve been consumed with trying to find an excuse to visit Air Temple Island, to request an audience with the Avatar that wouldn’t be immediately denied by the notoriously uptight Councilman Tenzin. Evidently I needn’t have worried, because here she is, falling into my lap through the radio. I down the rest of my drink in a shot, leaving a bill three times the cost of my drink under the empty glass. The alcohol makes my blood warm so I hail a cab. 

“Where to, miss?” the cabbie asks, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. 

“The pro-bending arena, please.”

“You might miss the match. It started about an hour ago.”

“I know. I just wanted to see if I could catch the players after. I’m a big fan.”

The cabbie was right. When I step onto the sidewalk outside the arena, crowds of people are starting to stream from the front doors. They’re all chattering to each other and I catch snippets of conversations as I push toward the door. 

“Can you believe it? The Avatar!”

“Ah, she may be a master bender but she’s a lousy pro-bender.”

“It’s an unfair advantage, they shouldn’t let her play.”

I make my way inside, following the main hallway toward the back end of the building. I don’t have far to go before I see a crowd of groupies gathered around an open doorway. They’re squealing excitedly, waving jerseys and pens, all trying to get an autograph from who I can only assume are the players inside their changing room. I hang back, leaning against a wall across from the noisy group, keeping my expression neutral despite the disgust that wells up at this obscene display of hero-worship. 

I train my eyes on the door. One of the players steps into sight, a stocky, green-eyed guy. He takes one of the girl’s jerseys, signing it with a flourish. 

“Easy, ladies, easy! There’s plenty of Bolin to go around.”

The girl whose jersey he just signed reaches past him like he’s not even there, waving the jersey frantically. 

“Avatar Korra! Can I have your autograph? I’m your biggest fan.”

I hear a woman’s laugh. 

“Sorry, Bolin,” the Avatar says, stepping into sight. She takes the jersey, resting it against the one called Bolin’s back as she signs it. She hands it back to the girl, smiling, and takes another jersey to sign. I’ve seen her photograph before, of course. I know what my target, what my greatest enemy looks like. But seeing her in person is different. She has a dynamic energy, an outward glow that shines through her eyes, her smile. A clever disguise. I can only imagine what she looks like when she’s angry, when the full wrath of her bending power is activated. Not so inviting then, I’m sure. 

She glances up idly as she hands back the second jersey, and her eyes land on me. It’s unexpected, and I feel a flare of something - fear? rage?- burst open in my chest. But I am nothing if not an excellent liar, and I smile at her, just a little, inviting a greeting. She looks slightly startled - probably not used to seeing someone who isn’t throwing themselves at her feet - and opens her mouth as if to say something. Before she can, a voice cuts down the hallway, jarring us both out of our eye contact.

“ _ Korra!” _

I look over and see a tall, bearded man in yellow and orange robes sweeping down the hall. 

_ Fuck. _

“You and I need to have a word,” he says to the Avatar as he draws closer, his voice clipped with barely contained anger. 

The sight of him puts a pit in my stomach. He is one of the most influential men in the city, and, as the son of Avatar Aang, one of the most powerful benders in the world. He also is apparently a man with exquisitely bad timing - the Avatar's attention has been fully removed from me, and I have no interest in trying to compete with Councilman Tenzin’s furious presence. The Avatar looks thoroughly embarrassed and angry in her own right at her mentor’s sudden appearance. Just like that, my moment with her has been shot. 

I push off the wall, barely containing a snarl of disappointment, and slip past him down the hall. I'm still a little buzzed so I take the long way back to my car, opting to walk to give myself time to sober up. The Avatar’s face is burning in my brain. 

Seeing her so close was more jarring than I had bargained for. I’d rehearsed that moment so many times, seen it playing out perfectly - I approach her, charming and kind and a little too humble as I introduce myself as Hiroshi Sato’s daughter and fawn over the fact that she’s the Avatar. I invite her out with me, offer to show her around the city. Recognizing me by my last name, she accepts. I’m not stupid - I know being the daughter of the wealthiest man in Republic City makes me a desirable friend. I’ve been used as a status symbol by many a fair-weather friend before, and with an Avatar who so clearly thrives on public praise, I’m certain she’ll be no different. She’d fall for my act hook, line, and sinker.

It was supposed to go perfectly, but of course the fucking Councilman had to interrupt. It’s fine, I tell myself. That was a test run, a practice round. I’ve seen her in person now, gotten over the initial shock. If I’d tried talking to her just then, I probably would’ve fucked it up, stumbled over my words like some kind idiot, tripped up by her deceptive Avatar glow. No, it’s better this way. I know she’s a pro-bender now. I can find her again. I’ll track the pro-bending schedule, show up at one of her matches, use my name to get a free pass to the changing room before the groupies can get there. 

I’m fully sober by the time I get back to my car, and I drive home with the radio off. I don’t want to run the risk of hearing her voice or her name again. The house is quiet when I come in, but as soon as I close the door behind me, I hear my father’s voice from the study. 

“Asami, come here.”

I close my eyes, clenching my jaw, taking a deep breath. I go into the study, stopping in the doorway. My father is seated in a wingback chair, angled half toward the roaring fireplace, half toward the door. He looks over at me, taking a deep inhale from the pipe held between his teeth. He exhales a cloud of smoke, taking the pipe into his hand, pointing it at me.

“Tell me about this mission of yours.”

I feel my nostrils flare. I look away from his face. He must’ve spoken to Amon. 

“I’m sure you know everything there is to know now,” I tell him.

“Why did you hide it from me, Asami?”

“I wasn’t hiding it. I’m not required to tell you about every task Amon gives me.”

“I am your father and a fellow Equalist. I’m funding this whole goddamn operation. I have a right to know goings-on, especially as they relate to the Avatar herself.”

“Then Amon owes you an explanation, not me. He’s the one after your money.”

“You watch your mouth when you’re speaking to me.”

“I’m not a child,” I seethe. “I’m doing you a favor sticking around here, keeping you from being completely alone in this big empty house.”

“Asami.” His voice is quiet, but I hear the danger in it. “I am keeping you safe here. You should be more grateful.”

I know I’m playing with fire. The truth is he has me by my neck. I’ve always lived in the comfort of his money. I consider myself a capable woman - I’m one of the top designers and engineers of new Future Industries gear - but I’ve never had a job where my boss wasn’t my own father. And, frankly, the freedom and comfort this lifestyle affords me is one I’m loath to sacrifice. 

So I drop my gaze, swallowing the fury that aches in my throat.

“You’re right. I’m sorry, dad.”

“That’s alright,” he says, his voice suddenly benevolent. “I’m sure this mission has put you under quite a bit of pressure.”

“Yes,” I say, knowing what’s coming next and completely unable to stop it. 

“You don’t have to worry. I have the perfect plan for you to meet the Avatar.”

There it is.

“There’s going to be a gala a week from now. That bastard Tarrlok is throwing it to honor the Avatar, and we’ve been graciously invited.”

This is news. Good news, to my surprise. A gala will be a much simpler way to strike up a friendship.

“I’d be able to introduce you two, of course,” he continues, entirely too self satisfied, and I suddenly can’t help myself. 

“I appreciate the offer, but I’ve already met the Avatar,” I say.

He stops short. His heavy ring glints in the firelight. “Is that right?”

What am I doing? I’m the best liar I know, but I’ve never been able to lie to my father. Somehow he always knows. But I’m in too deep now. 

“Mm-hm. Heard on the radio that she’s a pro-bender, and I was able to meet her after the match.”

“How wonderful,” he says, gripping his pipe in his teeth with a wide, unkind smile. “Well, you’ll have to introduce me then.”

My stomach drops. I smile back. “I’d love to. She’s just as delightful as you’d expect.”

He chuckles coldly at the joke. “I can’t wait,” he says.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW/TW: Mention of abuse

_ You stubborn, stupid idiot. You should’ve just let him introduce you. Why did you have to lie?  _

Just as easily as the Avatar first fell into my lap, she has suddenly decided to evade my grasp completely. I could have just as easily first met her at the gala, but now I have a lie to cover, and she’s nowhere to be found. There had been a pro-bending match this week. Just as I planned, I’d gone, made my way into the changing room, and waited for the match to end so I could greet the team. When they entered the room, the Avatar was not with them. Another bender wore the blue waterbending sash. Apparently Councilman Tenzin had forbidden the Avatar from any further pro-bending matches.

That was an uncomfortable conversation. Surrounded by benders, and having to try to delicately, politely explain that I was there for the Avatar alone, and congratulations on their match well played, and I’m afraid I have to go now. Bolin had tried to give me an autograph. The other one, the firebender with an unpleasant face, had just stared at me. 

I’d even tried getting to Air Temple Island. I’d succeeded, but only because I told them I was there to meditate and pray at the temple. As soon as I inquired after the Avatar, they said Tenzin had strictly forbidden her from having any visitors, and shortly after ushered me from the island. 

The gala is tonight. My time has run out. I’m in my room, carefully applying my makeup. It’s not easy to do with shaking hands. When my father finds out I’ve lied to him… He hates many things, but being lied to, being lied to by  _ me _ , is at the top of that list. The last time I lied to him, I’d hardly had enough makeup to hide the bruises not covered by my clothes. 

_ Stupid, stupid, stupid. _

I have to be careful, the tears are going to smudge my mascara. I blot at them with a tissue, absorbing them before they have a chance to fall. If my father sees me in shambles before we even make it to the gala, the night will be over before it’s begun. 

It’ll be fine. I’ve had worse. I’ve had far, far worse. 

I finish getting ready, pulling on my best red dress, putting the final touches on my hair. I look at the woman in the mirror. She is tall, striking, sharp-eyed, completely cool, utterly confident. She is everything I wish I was. She can take anything my father wants to dish out. She’ll protect me tonight. 

My father drives us to the gala in silence. We are both waiting for the hammer to fall. Once we arrive, I am all smiles. My father puts an arm around me for pictures, and it feels like a noose tightening. We are the picture of a happy family, here to greet and honor the Avatar, celebrate her arrival to the city. 

I see her across the room. So does my father. He grips my arm tightly, suddenly, leaning in. 

“I’m very excited to meet your new friend, the Avatar.” He’s gloating.

I force a tight smile, nod, avoid his eyes. “I need to get a drink.”

I pull away from his grip, making my way across the room to the refreshments table. I pick up a glass of champagne, taking a sip to calm my nerves. The Avatar stands a ways away, surrounded by people all vying for her attention, trying to say hello, to shake her hand, get a picture. Maybe she’ll be too swarmed for my father to have a chance to get us three alone. I know my father better; he’d never pass up a chance to find me out in a lie.

I can at least avoid it as long as possible. I move through the crowd and out onto the balcony. Fewer people are out here. Their voices are quiet and comforting as they converse in small groups. The air is cool and open and I can breathe for a moment. I take a longer sip of champagne. My hands still tremble, but at least out here I have a balcony to hold onto and for a moment I can pretend that I’m not such a horrible coward. 

I take a deep, bracing breath. 

_ You are in control here. You can find a way out of this. You always find a way out. Amon hand-picked you for this mission. Dad is just angry it wasn’t him instead, but he can’t take it from you. _

Someone touches my arm. I flinch, turning quickly. The Avatar is standing there. She pulls back, raising her hand as if to calm a frightened animal.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

I am not ready. I blink and try to find words and my throat is dry, and I hate her. I hate her because my mother is dead, and I hate her because I told a lie, and she was the lie, and I will suffer for it. 

She’s still speaking. “I just...I thought I recognized you? From the pro-bending arena, right?”

“Yes,” I manage. “Yes, that was me.”

I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I look up and it’s my father, coming straight for us both. He won’t give me the chance to meet this girl before he can prove that I never met her to begin with. 

The Avatar notices my distraction and follows my gaze, then looks back at me. There’s no time to say anything before my father is there, striding up with a pleasant expression that I recognize as a mask, his hand tucked into his lapel.

“Avatar Korra, what a pleasure! My daughter mentioned that she’d made friends with you the other day.” His tone is loud and unusually boisterous. I’m the only one who knows he’s making a mockery of me. I’m the only one who is supposed to know. 

I wait for the Avatar’s face to crease in confusion. I wait for my judgement to fall. It doesn’t. Instead she smiles at my father, and then at me. 

“Yes, that’s right,” she says. “Asami was kind enough to offer to show me around the city. I haven’t had the chance to take her up on it. Tenzin has me run ragged with training.” She laughs, and for some reason I smile. “But I’m very excited to be given the grand tour by a Republic City native. And can I say, sir, it’s such an honor to meet  _ the _ Hiroshi Sato. The things you’ve done for our world in your lifetime… Well, I think it’s safe to say it’s more than I’ll ever manage.”

She shakes his hand, and I can see that he is dumbfounded and crestfallen. He had been so certain that I was lying. So had I. 

“Yes, a pleasure indeed.,” he says, his voice less exuberant than before. “I hope Asami can show you just how beautiful our great city really is.”

“I don’t doubt she will,” Korra says, looking at me with a smile. 

And I’m smiling too, back at her, over at my father. He says something about not wanting to take too much of the Avatar’s time. He tries to excuse me along with himself, but the Avatar stops him. 

“I hope you don’t mind if I steal Asami away for a moment, Mr. Sato. For some girl talk.”

“Of course, of course,” my father says. He seems quietly furious. I wonder if I will still suffer for having not lied when he was so certain I had. I decide to put that out of my mind, at least for now, as he bows and walks away. 

The Avatar looks at me, a conspiratorial glimmer in her eye. She laughs quietly. 

“That was weird. Did I do okay?”

“How do you know my name?”

“The boys told me that you stopped by to see me. I was so flattered. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” She frowns. “Tenzin really has been training me like crazy, and said I couldn’t pro-bend anymore. But I give it a week before his guard is down enough for me to sneak out again.”

I nod and down the rest of my champagne in one swallow. I could use another, but I know I shouldn’t leave. This is my chance to make friends with the Avatar. Naturally, I can’t think of a single thing to say. I lean against the balcony, facing out toward the night sky, trying to get my thoughts in order. 

She leans beside me. I can feel her eyes careful on my face.

“I don’t want to be nosy,” she says, “so you don't have to answer this, but… are you okay?”

I glance away, inhaling, reprimanding myself.  _ Pull it together _ . 

“Yes,” I say finally, looking over at her. “Thank you for covering for me just now. I...it’s stupid. I told my dad I’d made friends with you, because…”  _ Because it’s an important part of my mission to destroy you. _ “Because I wanted him to think I was cool.”

The Avatar laughs. The sound makes my chest clench. The feeling of it isn’t fear. It isn’t exactly hatred either. I don’t have time to think too deeply about it. 

“Don’t worry, I don’t think that’s stupid,” she says. “I’m glad I could help boost your cool ratings with your dad, but honestly, I’m just a big idiot myself.”

I laugh then, too, playing along. I’m coming back into myself. I can breathe. I smile at her, shrugging. 

“I don’t know, you’re obviously quick on the draw. You came up with that lie pretty damn fast.”

“Ah,” she shrugs. “I’m just good at bullshitting authority figures. Benefits of being raised under intense supervision. You learn how to lie under pressure.”

I nod. We look out at the twinkling city lights for a long moment. My mind is refocusing - I’m out of danger for the time being. I have to hone back in. I glance sidelong at the Avatar. It feels strange that she’s here, beside me. After all this time planning her demise, I expected her to seem more...powerful. Godlike. Conceited, at the very least. She is none of those things. She may be easier to destroy than I thought. 

“Well,” I say. “I really would like to take you around the city, as a way of saying thank you.”

“I think that sounds fun,” she smiles. “And I think Tenzin would put you on the list of approved visitors to the island, if you asked nicely.”

I feel a blush rise in my cheeks, and I inwardly curse myself for it. “I haven’t been very subtle, have I?”

“Oh no, you have. I’m just  _ really  _ observant.”

I look over at her and she gives me a wink.

“I’m free for that outing tomorrow, if that works for you?” she says. 

“Tomorrow, perfect. I can pick you up at the ferry dock at noon.”

“Deal,” she says. She’s resting on her elbows on the balcony, and she opens her hand toward me. “I’m Korra, by the way. We haven’t officially introduced ourselves.”

I lean over to her, accepting her hand in mine. We’re close enough that our bodies block any outside view of the handshake. She’s protecting me from my father’s watchful eye, from any evidence he could have that we had not officially met before tonight. 

“Asami Sato. Pleasure to meet you.”

Her hand is warm and her grip is strong. She lets go.

“See you tomorrow at noon, Asami.”

“See you then.”

* * *

I change for bed after we get home, trying to keep my breathing even, trying to keep my hands from shaking. So much for hoping for the best. So much for ever thinking I could somehow win this. On the drive home my father had been silent. I’d tried convincing myself that he was just tired. Surely seeing my success with the Avatar would have offset any potential humiliation he felt at being wrong about my lie. Surely he would be at least a little proud of me. Surely he would see this as a win for us both.

I’m even more of an idiot than I thought.

I inspect the damage in the mirror. My jaw should be fine - he wasn’t holding me long enough to leave any permanent marks. His backhand missed my eye, thank god. Black eyes are hard to hide. There’s a welt on my cheek from his thick ring, but that will be easy enough to cover up. Long sleeves will remedy the gripping bruise on my arm. My ribs ache, but no one will be able to see those. 

_ Stupid man. He’s so careless. Does he want everyone to know? _

I’d had to remind him. Looking into his furious face, trying not to cry out from the pain as he gripped my jaw, reaching up to catch his wrist - not to fight him off, but to get his attention. 

“I have to be out tomorrow,” I’d said to him. “With the Avatar. Where people can see me.”

For a moment it seemed like that was going to make him angrier, make it worse for me. So I’d said what he wanted to hear. 

“Please, dad. I’m sorry.”  _ Sorry for what?  _ Anything. Anything he wanted me to be sorry for. For existing. For having my mother’s eyes. 

He’d let me go then, snarling at me to get out of his sight. I managed to get to my bedroom, to close the door, to lock it quietly enough that it wouldn’t catch his attention, before the sobs started. I muffled them in a pillow. He hated hearing me cry. 

I catch the gaze of the woman in the mirror, bloodshot eyes, tear stained cheeks. She looks small and afraid, like that same little girl all those years ago, still cowering from her father, still apologizing for all the things she hadn’t done wrong. I can’t look for too long. I am so angry. I am such a coward. 

I curl beneath the blankets, pulling a pillow close to my body. Holding it tightly helps stop the shaking. It gives my hands something to do. It distracts from the throbbing in my cheek. I expect to stay awake in anticipation of tomorrow, but I am exhausted. Sleep takes over me quickly. 

I dream of Avatar Aang’s statue coming to life, crossing the bay and the city to our house. He peers through the window, expressionless. Then the walls start shaking. He’s crushing our house, bending it into the ground. I can’t escape. 

I wake up with a start, panting. My side aches. I blink the dream away and lie back down, willing myself to sleep. I’m still awake when the sun rises.


	4. Chapter 4

This was a mistake. I should be more prepared for my first outing with the Avatar. I should be at my very best and brightest and friendliest. Today is arguably the most crucial piece of my mission, and instead of being ready to put my best foot forward, I feel like shit. That dream exhausted me. As I sit parked at the docks, waiting for the Avatar’s ferry to arrive, I can feel the presence of Avatar Aang’s massive statue looming over the bay. I avoid its gaze, absurdly paranoid that if I make eye contact it will come to life and bury me in earth and water. 

My body hurts. My ribs are sore enough that they ache every time I take a breath, and my cheekbone throbs with a steady, bruised pain. I haven’t smiled yet this morning, but I can’t imagine that will make it feel any better. My father was nowhere to be found when I went downstairs for breakfast. No surprise there. He always makes himself scarce after his outbursts. If nothing else, I come by my cowardice honestly.

I grip the steering wheel, closing my eyes. If I don’t charm the everloving fuck out of the Avatar today, if I don’t sell a friendship with her harder than I’ve ever sold anything in my life, this will all be for nothing. 

_ I can do this. _

I have to. 

When the ferry pulls up to the docks, the Avatar isn’t hard to spot. She waves as she sees me, smiling brightly with that crooked grin I’ve seen in the papers so often. I smile back, and have to fight a wince of pain. It hurts just as much as I thought it would.

“That was a pretty close call,” she says as she climbs into the car. I pull away from the curb. 

“What do you mean?”

“Tenzin almost didn’t let me come. Thankfully, though, he thinks very highly of you.” Her voice becomes gruff, imitating Tenzin’s stern tone as she strokes an invisible goatee in mock seriousness. “‘Hmm, yes, Miss Sato seems like an upstanding young woman. Very well, Korra, but be back before supper.’”

She scoffs and laughs. 

I smile along, ignoring the pain in my cheek. “Well, it seems my reputation precedes me. I have only the  _ most _ upstanding activities planned for the day.”

I drive us to The Snowcap, one of Republic City’s finest restaurants. The server bows us in, seating us on a private balcony. The Avatar opens the menu and her eyes go wide as she peruses the options.

“ _ Wow _ ,” she says, her voice sounding a little choked. “This looks, um, really good!”

She doesn’t do a very good job of hiding her aversion. I wouldn’t have expected the Avatar to be picky about food, but then again she  _ is _ used to having her every whim catered to by the White Lotus. 

“We don’t have to eat here,” I offer. “If nothing sounds good, there’s a few other places I could show you.”

“No, Asami, I mean, this all looks incredible. I just…” She pauses. A blush rises in her cheeks and she tugs on one of the locks of hair hanging beside her face. “I don’t know if I can...afford it.”

That surprises me. As a person of such power, I thought the Avatar would also be a person of means. At the expression on my face, the Avatar blushes harder, stammering as she avoids my eyes. 

“Honestly, it’s no big deal! I’m not even that hungry anyway, I could probably get a salad or something.”

I feel so stupid. How was this a detail I missed? 

“Korra, please don’t worry about it - lunch is my treat.”

“You don’t have to-”

“It’s no trouble at all. I promise.”

“Okay,” she says finally. “But I promise I’ll pay you back.”

I wave her off. “You agreeing to spend today with me is payment enough.”

When the waiter takes our orders, I notice that she gets one of the cheapest things from the menu anyway - a fish soup with a small green side salad. I add a few appetizers onto the order, and when they arrive I nudge the dishes her way. She holds her hands up. 

“I’m okay, Asami, really.”

“Well I certainly can’t eat all of this myself. Help me out?”

She hesitates for a moment. God, she’s stubborn. I tilt my head, lifting my eyebrows a little. 

“Please?”

She sighs out a quiet breath, rubbing the back of her neck as she grins. 

“Alright. If you insist.”

The conversation is light and pleasant. I ask her about growing up in the Southern Watertribe, being trained by the White Lotus. She tells me things I already know, things I learned by heart in my research about her - she’s an only child, daughter of the Southern Water Tribe Chieftain, Tonraq, raised under the watchful eye of the White Lotus since childhood. She speaks animatedly, gesturing with the fork in her hand as she tells me about her days of training, about when she first got her polar bear dog, Naga, about the first time she ever remembered bending. 

Then she asks me about myself. I give her the cursory answers - that I love being a Sato, and enjoy tinkering in the workshop in my free time. In every social interaction I’ve ever had, that’s been plenty enough for my conversation partner. After I give my standard response, they’re happy to launch back into their own life story, sometimes even before I’ve finished talking. But the Avatar listens. She listens  _ intently _ , nodding and reacting as I speak, punctuating my sentences with enthusiastic “mhm”s and “wow, really?”s. I almost don’t know how to respond. No one has ever shown so much interest in me before. 

I suddenly feel distinctly self-conscious, afraid that I am exposing far too much of myself to the enemy. I am here to know  _ her _ , not the other way around. So when there is a pause as she takes a drink of her water, I ask: “So, what do you think of the food?”

“Mm!” she says, holding her hands out to the side. “It’s incredible. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom’s cooking, and Pema makes a mean noodle dish, but I don’t think I’ve ever had anything quite this delicious before.”

I smile over my glass. If I don’t let it reach my eyes, it hurts less. 

“I’m so glad. This is one of my favorite places to eat, I was hoping you’d like it.”

“I think I could eat here every day for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.”

“Noted,” I say with a chuckle. “Though there are quite a few other restaurants I’ve been hoping to show you.”

“Well if this place is anything to go by, I totally trust your taste. Although,” she hesitates then. “You really don’t have to treat me. I’m okay going to….less fancy places.”

“Korra,” I say fervently. Selling it. “It’s my pleasure to do this. I’m just glad you wanted to come out with me at all.”

She looks shy, but she smiles and nods. 

I get the check when we’re finished eating, and we head down from the balcony. It’s a case of bad timing, bad luck, with my attention on the Avatar as we round a corner, but I run directly into one of the servers as he’s heading back toward the kitchen. He isn’t carrying anything, gratefully - a mess of food and drink would have made it even worse - but his elbow catches my side. It’s not a hard hit, but it strikes the bruised portion of my ribs hard enough to jar a sound from my lips as pain lances across my torso. 

He is immediately apologetic, touching my arm to steady me. 

“Miss Sato, I am so sorry, are you alright?”

The Avatar’s eyes are on me so I smile, nodding. 

“It’s alright, just an accident. No harm, no foul.”

He is still apologizing as we take our leave. The Avatar doesn’t say anything about it - maybe I was quiet enough that she didn’t notice. Maybe I didn’t actually make a sound, and only imagined it through the pain. I let myself believe that. The Avatar doesn’t try to change my mind. 

I take her to Avatar Park for a stroll around the pond. I purchase a bag of corn and peas from a nearby vendor and we toss them to the turtle-ducks. The Avatar laughs at the way their feet kick under the water. 

“I’ve heard of these before, but the South Pole is too cold for anything but seal-penguins,” she tells me, crouching down to hold out a handful of feed to the nearest of the animals. They swim tentatively closer. One of the smaller ones, a duckling by the sound of its peeping noises, nabs a pea from her palm. She laughs. 

It occurs to me that I’ve never heard someone laugh so easily before. This strikes me as unfair. I’ve met many deeply unpleasant people and it seems only right that the Avatar should be among them. I know how to manage unpleasant people. I know how to manipulate them, how to tell them what they want to hear, how to sit and feign interest in their own self-absorption, how to get what I want from them. The Avatar is an entirely new breed of personality, completely uninterested in her own importance, and I’m not sure how to navigate that. 

This will be a challenge. 

I find myself taking her in as she crouches there, hand out toward the turtle-ducks that circle slowly toward the treats she offers. Her free arm rests on her knee, hand relaxed, patterns of dappled light glinting against the deep tan of her skin. The musculature of her back shows through the fabric of her shirt. I had known generally that the Avatar was fit - it only seemed right that she would be, having been rigorously trained her whole life - but seeing her in person is a different experience entirely. 

A sudden shout from across the pond startles the circling turtle-ducks away and jars me out of my thoughts. I look over toward the sound as the Avatar straightens with a good-humored chuckle, tossing the rest of the feed into the water. Then her attention finds who is doing the shouting, and the laugh dies on her lips. 

An Equalist rally is gathering on the other side of the pond. Chu, that idiot with the bad sideburns, is standing on a platform, yelling into a microphone as an oversized poster of Amon glowers behind him. My heart drops. The Avatar stiffens, her shoulders squaring.

“Give me a second, Asami,” she says. 

Before I can respond, she’s waterbending herself across the pond, the water rising to match her strides and depositing her on the opposite bank moments later. She’s striding up to the crowd, her body radiating anger. 

_ Fuck, fuck, fuck.  _

The timing could not be worse. I’ve never liked Chu - we might both be Equalists, but he’s an irritating little gnat who never knows when to shut his mouth. So of course, on the day I’ve been hoping to show the Avatar nothing but a good time, he has to show up and sour the mood. I break into a run to get around the pond, wondering idly if I could have Amon disavow the man so he can stop being such a goddamned nuisance. 

By the time I get there, the crowd is shouting angrily. The Avatar stands there, shouting angrily right back, jabbing her finger toward Chu. He’s shrieking through his megaphone, stomping his feet like a petulant child.

“You see? You see how the Avatar threatens me? This is why Amon is who we need right now, to protect us against this type of oppression!”

“Oh, you want to be oppressed?” the Avatar fires back. If she had sleeves I’m positive she’d be pushing them up. I can’t let this go any further. If the Avatar starts bending, people are going to get hurt. 

I grab her arm. She snaps her gaze to me, furious, and my heart clenches, my muscles bracing for attack, but the expression fades as she realizes it’s me. 

“Come on, Korra,” I say. “Let’s get out of here. They’re not worth it.”

“Careful, Miss Sato!” Chu blares, “The Avatar is dangerous.”

He doesn’t know I’m an Equalist, and for that I’m grateful. He’s seen me at rallies, but only ever in uniform, only ever with a mask over my face. He only knows my name for the same reason everyone else does, so I ignore him. It doesn’t shut him up.

“She’s liable to bend you right here and now, folks. Be careful! Benders are the enemy!”

He’s grating my last nerve. My face hurts, my body hurts, my heart is pounding, and I’m holding the arm of a woman who could end my life with a flick of her wrist. So I turn, locking eyes with him, snarling. 

“How about you do everyone here a favor and fuck off?”

I hear the crowd gasp. Chu is flabbergasted. Everyone seems to think I’m their friend before they meet me. I’m the charming daughter of Hiroshi Sato, the darling of the press. No one expects anything from me but a smile. Well, fuck that. 

Even the Avatar is staring at me, wide-eyed, stunned out of her anger.

I tug at her arm again, feeling the hardness of her muscles, knowing that in a test of brute strength she’d win out and hoping that she’ll just come willingly. My outburst seems to have surprised her enough that she forgets her fight, and she moves with me as I begin pulling her away from the crowd. Chu’s voice echoes out before we can make it too far. 

“I’m surprised at you, Miss Sato. If anyone should be on the side of the Equalists, it’s you. Have you forgotten what benders did to your mother?”

Ice runs down my spine. The breath catches in my chest. I stop short, wheeling, my cheek aching as fury takes over my expression. I want to run up onto that platform and snap his neck. How  _ dare _ he speak about my mother? How dare he use her memory to control me? Amon has done it, and my father has done it, and I have borne it because they could kill me if they wanted to, but this spineless weasel of a man who never knew my mother, who doesn’t know me, has crossed a very dangerous line. 

For the barest of moments, I wish I was a bender. I would put a spike of stone straight through his heart. Perhaps the Avatar would do it for me, if I asked. But every eye in the crowd is on me, and I feel like I’m drowning. I can see my mother’s body. I can do nothing to this man, not here, not now. A million things run through my mind to say. I only say one of them. 

“You know nothing about me.”

Then I’m turning away, and there are tears in my eyes and I hate myself for it. The Avatar stands there, shock etched across her face. I walk past her. I can hear her hasty footsteps and she catches up to keep pace beside me. I don’t look at her. Chu resumes his yelling, but we’re far enough away now that I can’t make out the words.

We make it to the car. I get into the driver’s seat, the Avatar taking her place on the passenger side. I don’t start the engine right away. I’m trying to control my breathing, willing my tears to sink back into my eyes. The Avatar is tense beside me. I can practically hear her trying to figure out something to say. She seems to be coming up empty-handed. I turn my face away, pressing at the tears with the heels of my hands, clearing my vision.

“I’ll take you home,” I say, keeping my voice stiff. 

I start the car, the rumble of the engine filling the space between us.

We drive to the docks in silence. My head is empty, or I try to pretend it is. The Avatar plays with her hands, her eyes downcast. I can’t bring myself to look at her. I should be easing the tension, making her feel better, making her not regret agreeing to come out with me, but I don’t have the strength for it. I know I will suffer the consequences. I can’t bring myself to care. 

I pull up to the docks and put the car in park. My hands grip the steering wheel tightly. 

“Asami, I-” The Avatar hesitates. I want to stop her from saying anything else, but I don't. “I’m sorry. I...I didn’t know.”

I can’t think of a single thing to say. I see a boat motoring in from Air Temple Island. 

“I think that’s your ride,” I say, not looking at her. 

“Oh,” she says. “Right. I guess...I’ll see you around?”

“Okay,” I say. 

She gets out of the car and moves to stand in line for the ferry. I should leave now, I know. I should put the car in reverse and go home. But I don’t. I wait until the Avatar has boarded her ferry. She turns and sees me still sitting there and lifts her hand, just a little, in a small wave. I don’t know why, but I wave back. 


	5. Chapter 5

The shore behind the ferry shrinks away slowly. I have to try hard not to watch it go, not to watch the shape of Asami’s car dwindle in the distance. I lean on my elbows against the forward railing. The evening air is cool against my neck. The water is calm and still, lapping gently against the side of the boat. In the distance, Air Temple Island has already turned on its lights for the night. It looks so quiet, so peaceful. 

What a day. A wonderful, strange, difficult day. It’s still a little hard to wrap my head around the fact that I just spent my day with _the_ Asami Sato. Even kept under lock and key with the White Lotus like I was, I still managed to hear so much about her. She was a headliner more than once on the papers some of the guards would read, and she’d done plenty of radio interviews with people all over the world. I’d listened to them enough that her voice had become something of a comfort to me. On nights I couldn’t sleep, I’d imagine what it would be like to be her friend. I’d never admit that out loud, to anyone, ever, but it made seeing her today, and hearing her voice in person, a surreal experience to say the least. 

She was every bit as wonderful as I thought she’d be. So polite, so generous, incredibly smart, and - I feel a blush rise in my cheeks just at the thought - easily the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. When I first saw her after my pro-bending match, I thought I was imagining things. I couldn’t believe it was her. I was more than a little pissed when Tenzin showed up and scared her off. I thought I’d lost my only chance to meet her, but then she made an appearance at the gala. I close my eyes for a second, remembering it. She looked so beautiful, so elegant in that gorgeous red dress.

I’d almost chickened out before I went up to talk to her, but it was like something was drawing me toward her. I couldn’t help myself. Of course, it wasn’t the most ideal circumstance. Galas are supposed to be fun, or so I’d been told, but Asami had been tense. She’d jumped almost a mile when I’d first touched her arm. Her expression comes back to me clearly - the darting of her eyes, the tight set of her mouth, the stiffness in her shoulders as her father approached. She’d been afraid. More specifically, she’d been afraid of _him._

At first glance, Hiroshi hadn’t struck me as a particularly volatile person, but I knew that wasn’t enough to go on - there’d been many a White Lotus trainer with serious anger issues who seemed completely harmless when I first met them, too. 

As I’d talked to him, I felt myself go on the defensive. He was very smooth, very good at seeming calm and put-together, but I knew what to look for. The too-wide smile, the exaggerated joviality, the shock followed by barely-concealed anger when I covered for Asami and pretended as though we had met before. I couldn’t fathom _why_ Asami had needed to lie to him about that, but I felt like it was deeper than trying to seem cool like she had tried to tell me. Whatever the reason, it was enough to make Hiroshi dangerous.

I’d held onto her as long as I could, but it wasn’t nearly long enough. If I could have, I would’ve had her on my arm all evening. Instead, I watched her leave in the shadow of her father. I wanted to run after them, make up some ridiculous excuse that would give Asami a reason to stay at the gala with me. Anything to keep her away from him. Anything to protect her. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. 

It was obvious that I had failed her. She was hurt today. Her smile was off - every time she laughed, there was a strain in her face. And when she’d collided with that server, I swear I’d heard her yelp in pain. 

The thought makes my hands curl into fists, balling up against the railing. 

I could kill Hiroshi. Fuck his “ _contributions to society” -_ no man who beats his own daughter deserves to live, let alone thrive, in any world I’m meant to protect. For a second, I imagine smashing down the door of the Sato estate, bending him through the window, beating the life out of him. I glance up at the towering statue of Aang as we float by. I’m sure he’d hardly approve of such violence. 

_Good thing he isn’t the Avatar anymore._

It’s a ridiculous thought. Avatar or no, I wouldn’t be able to get away with murdering one of the most high profile men in the known world. Maybe I could just put him in prison for life. Something, anything, to get him away from Asami. But that, of course, would depend completely on whether she wanted to see me again. And after the events in the park today, I’m not sure that she would. 

I’d known that her mother died when Asami was young, but somehow I’d missed the very crucial detail that she’d been killed by benders. As obnoxious as the guy with the megaphone was, I have to agree with him - I’m also surprised that Asami isn’t an Equalist. After everything she’s been through, and not being a bender herself, there’s really no reason for her not to be. A selfish part of me is glad she isn’t. It would be asking a lot for an Equalist to want to give the Avatar so much as the time of day, much less any real chance at friendship. 

I can hear that man’s stupid amplified voice, bringing up Asami’s mother. I can see her face, contorted with pure, unfiltered rage. I’d wanted to kick the shit out of him myself for talking to her like that. I almost did, and damn the consequences. But she’d been so upset, and I could see the tears in her eyes. I didn’t want to cause a scene and risk getting us both in trouble. Instead I just followed her to the car and sat in silence all the way to the docks. I curse myself for the hundredth time since we left the park. Why didn’t I say something? Why didn’t I comfort her?

_Because you’re the problem, idiot. You’re a bender._

Of course. What could I say? What did I have the right to say? More than anything, I wanted to hold her hand, or hug her, and promise that I would protect her from benders and Equalist bastards with megaphones alike. I shake my head in frustration. I sound like such a fucking weirdo. I have to keep reminding myself that she doesn’t know me the way I know her. Not to mention the fact that after such a brutal reminder that benders are the reason her mother is dead, I’m sure the last person in the world she’d want comforting her would be the goddamned Avatar. 

Still, though. I feel a responsibility to her. What if I’m the only one who has noticed that Hiroshi hurts her? In all I've ever seen of her, she doesn’t seem to have many friends, so no one to confide in about it. And I know that any of Hiroshi’s close acquaintances would likely turn a blind eye to that kind of thing, if they noticed it at all. I can’t just abandon her, not when I know what I know. Or at least, when I know what I _think_ I know. If I can do anything to help her, to protect her, I think it’s at least worth a shot. And if she outright rejects me, that’ll be the end of that. 

When the ferry docks, I go and find Tenzin right away. 

“Korra,” he says. “Good, you’re back. How was your day with Miss Sato?”

“Really good!” I tell him brightly. The last thing he needs to know is that I ran into some Equalists the one time he let me go into the city. “Actually, I was wondering, would it be okay if she came over for dinner some time? I think it would be nice to repay her for such a great day.”

“Well, of course. She’s welcome here, as long as she doesn’t become a distraction for you.”

“No distraction at all, I promise,” I say sincerely. 

“Alright then. Just be sure to tell Pema when she’ll be coming, just so we can have enough places set.”

“I will. Thanks, Tenzin.”

When it’s time for bed, I feel wide awake. I climb up onto the roof above my bedroom, breathing in the bay breeze as it sweeps in off the water. The lights of Republic City glow in the distance. Among them somewhere, I hope Asami is sleeping soundly. I hope she’s dreaming of pleasant things. I hope she’s safe. 


	6. Chapter 6

I can’t sleep. I’m in my room, sitting on the windowsill in my underwear, letting the night air drift in. I have a cold pack wrapped in a towel pressed against my ribs. It doesn’t help much, but it’s something. A cup of tea cools beside my crossed feet, the steam curling patterns into the air. I take a deep breath, wincing as it strains at the bruise. 

My eyes drift across the cityscape, past the glowing buildings of downtown, out to the shimmering bay. I think of the Avatar’s retreating form as she boarded the ferry. 

_You really fucked it up, Asami_. 

I should’ve said something. I should’ve fucking said something. Anything. I just let her sit there, worried and uncomfortable and marinating in my pain and rage as it radiated off me in waves. She’s never going to want to see me again. What will Amon say? 

What will my father do? 

My stomach drops a mile. I pick up the tea, putting it to my lips, focusing on the scalding liquid to clear my head. I can’t think of him. I have to focus on solutions. Besides, his guilt keeps him at a distance for at least a week or two after every outburst, so I have some time to figure things out before I need to bank on worst case scenarios. 

Surely I can salvage this. I could send her something. Flowers? Do friends send each other flowers to apologize? Do friends have to apologize for things? I would probably know that if I’d ever had any friends before. Amon should have taken that into consideration before singling me out to befriend the Avatar. He probably assumed that my name would have earned me a whole band of friends just by default. 

A humorless laugh escapes my lips. If only he knew. I’m easily the worst candidate to make friends with anyone, let alone with the person I hate most in the world. 

Fuck it. Flowers it is. At this point, I couldn’t make it worse, so I might as well try anything to make it better. I’ll call a delivery service first thing tomorrow. 

I finish what’s left of my tea and climb down from the windowsill. My skin is cold to the touch where the compress has been resting. I lift my arm over my head, testing the pain levels. Not terrible. Not amazing either. 

A knock at the door startles me. I pull on my robe, and answer it, cracking the door just slightly. Our butler, Han, stands there. He bows shortly. 

“Apologies for the late hour, madam. This came for you and I was told it was urgent.”

He hands me a letter and leaves. I close the door behind him, turning the letter over in my hand. There’s no writing on the outside, and it’s sealed with a plain wax seal. I somehow already know who it’s from as I open it, and my suspicions are confirmed as I read the brief message. 

_Let’s talk. After hours, tomorrow._

There’s no name, but I know it’s from Amon. The message is intentionally vague in case it were to fall into the wrong hands, but I’m well versed enough in Equalist code that I know he wants to meet with me tomorrow night at the hideout. I fold the paper up and slip it into the wastebin - a shredded letter would seem far more suspicious than an innocuous piece of paper. 

My stomach is in knots. I’m suddenly relying on a measly bunch of flowers to save my hide, to give me some good news to deliver to Amon. I’ve never been a religious person, but I find myself praying to the spirits that it’s enough. 

* * *

The next morning I make myself breakfast. Ordinarily I can request something from the staff, but I didn’t sleep well - a phenomenon which is quickly becoming the norm around here - and the routine of prepping my own meal soothes me. Rice is cooking on the back burner, a fine line of white bubbles bumping the lid every so often. I drop a pat of butter in the pan, rolling it around slowly, the smell of it as it melts delicious and comforting. The egg hisses and bubbles as I drop it into the pan, the butter crackling and making the edges of the whites flop sporadically. When it’s ready, I carefully slide the spatula underneath the egg and flip it quickly. No yolk leaks out the bottom, and I can’t help but smile just a little. 

Small victories. 

I spoon the finished rice into a bowl, gently slide the egg over top, and sprinkle the whole thing liberally with soy sauce. A spoonful of bright pink pickled ginger completes the assembly. The yolk is perfectly cooked - it breaks golden and liquid over the top of the rice, oozing out in slow rivulets. I eat leaning up against the counter, letting the flavors spread over my tongue, savoring each bite. 

This is nice. It’s been a hard few weeks, but sometimes a good breakfast helps. 

I feel safe in the kitchen. It’s unlikely my father would do anything to seek me out right now, but my chances of running into him are lower if I stay out of common areas like the dining room. I don’t think he’s ever stepped foot in the kitchen for as long as we’ve lived here. As far as he’s concerned it’s a space for the household staff, and he can’t be bothered to be around them for too long. Fine by me. 

I’m planning to call the flower shop as soon as they open. It’s a little early, not yet 8 o’clock, so I’m taking my time. I finish the last morsels of my meal and begin rinsing my bowl in the sink. I don’t have to - I’ve had someone cleaning up after me since I was a child - but I don’t mind. It makes me feel more able, less like a spoiled child. I hear the phone ring somewhere in the house, which is odd, but not completely unheard of - my father is always getting calls from someone or another at all hours. 

But then Han steps through the door, the phone stand on a tray, the receiver in his hand. 

“It’s for you, ma’am.”

That’s unusual. Who would be calling for me? I dry my hands on a towel and take the phone from him.

“Thank you.” I tell him. I put it to my ear. “Hello?”

“Hey, Asami!”

It’s the Avatar. I can’t help the surprise in my voice. 

“Korra, hi.”

“I’m sorry, did I wake you up?” She sounds embarrassed. 

“No, no, I’ve been up.”

“Oh good, okay,” she says. There’s a pause, and I’m about to ask what she’s calling about when she speaks again. “Look, Asami, about yesterday-”

I shut my eyes, pinching my temples between my thumb and forefinger. “Korra, listen, I owe you an apology. I didn’t mean to make you feel so uncomfortable.”

“No, Asami, not at all! _I’m_ the one who owes you an apology. I feel so terrible about that jerk at the park, and I should’ve…” She hesitates. I imagine she’s tugging at one of her ponytails. “I don’t know. I should’ve helped you, or something. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I tell her. I can’t help the relief that floods through me. I thought I’d have to bow and scrape to get myself back into the Avatar’s good graces, but she’s delivered my redemption on a silver platter.

“Well, agree to disagree, I guess,” she chuckles. “Hey, I wanted to ask - would you want to come to dinner here sometime? To Air Temple Island, I mean. As a thank you for lunch yesterday.”

She is just full of surprises.

“Oh, I, um-”

“No pressure,” she says hastily. “I know you don’t even know me that well yet and you’re probably super busy doing big Future Industries stuff, I just thought I would extend the invitation but, obviously, it’s totally fine if that’s not something you’d want to do, this probably feels totally out of left field anyway-”

“Korra,” I cut in. “I would be honored to come to dinner with you.”

“Really?” she says, her voice bright. “Okay, wow, awesome. Um, are you free tonight?”

I think of the letter in my room. 

“I’m sorry, I have something going on tonight. What about tomorrow? Would you be free then?”

“For _sure_ ,” she says emphatically. “I’ll let Pema know! See you tomorrow night?”

“See you then.”

* * *

I buy her the flowers anyway. They’ll be delivered to my place before dinner tomorrow, and I can give them to the Avatar in person. It’s the least I can do, she’s saved my ass from a dismal first report to Amon and possible punishment. It occurs to me that this isn’t the first time she’s saved me, or tried to. Which is pretty funny, if I don’t think about it too hard. 

I don’t. 

I stride through the hideout, fully uniformed. I know I’m in the clear, I’m making excellent progress with the Avatar despite the hiccup in the park, so much so that she’s initiated a meeting with me in her own home. By all accounts I should be on top of the world, but my stomach is in knots as I knock on the door behind which Amon waits. It’s infuriating. I’m so fucking sick of being afraid. Afraid of benders, afraid of my father, afraid of Amon. I wonder what it must be like to not be a coward. 

The door opens. The Lieutenant stands there. He nods at me, then steps back to allow me entrance. I step inside and the Lieutenant leaves, closing the door behind him. Amon stands across the room, his hands held behind his back. He turns his head to look at me. 

“Asami,” he says by way of greeting. The growl of his voice sets my nerves on edge. 

“Amon.” 

“How goes your venture with the Avatar?”

“Very well,” I say. “I took her to lunch yesterday, and she’s invited me to come to dinner at Air Temple Island tomorrow.”

“Excellent. What have you learned so far?”

I think of the Avatar’s face, her bright blue eyes, the sound of her laugh. I think of the warmth of her hand at the gala. I think of her expression as she listened, enraptured, as I told her about my life. I think of her clenched fists in the face of the Equalist rally. I think of her expression as she fed the turtle-ducks. I think of her small wave to me as she boarded the ferry. Many words to describe her come to mind. I say none of them. 

“She’s naive. Reckless. Willing to trust and willing to fight in equal measure at a moment’s notice.”

Amon grunts. “As I thought. She may be powerful, but she is not formidable. She thinks her status as the Avatar will protect her. We will prove her wrong.” 

I nod, trying to conjure up a feeling of elation, of impending victory at the idea of the Avatar’s downfall. I find myself feeling hollow instead, balking at the cruelty in Amon’s voice. I shake off the feeling - I am not the one in danger here. I don’t need to be worried. 

Amon glances up at me sharply, and I stiffen, quelling my thoughts as if he could hear them. 

“I want you to take advantage of this opportunity to visit Air Temple Island,” Amon says. “I’m sure the Avatar would be much obliged to give you a tour, and you must use that to identify weaknesses. Study the White Lotus forces, any points of easy access, even where the Avatar sleeps, if you can.”

My stomach drops and I cannot fathom why. This is my mission. I am not here to bring the Avatar flowers and share casual meals with her. There is work to be done. My job is to expose the Avatar’s weaknesses, to invade her privacy and make her vulnerable. I know this. 

So why does it taste like iron in my mouth?

“Of course, Amon.”

“I’ll expect a full report once you’ve finished with your visit. This will be valuable intelligence.”

“I won’t let you down.”

“I know you won’t.” His voice is low, his eyes sharp. It is a threat. 

I take my leave. Ordinarily I would stay at the hideout, spend some time catching up with my fellow Equalists, pick up intel from around the city on goings-on with bender attacks, but I feel strangely frail so I leave. I don’t even have the energy for a night drive. I go straight home and pad up the stairs to my room, disrobing and climbing into bed. I fall asleep quickly. 

I dream that I am standing at the top of the stairs. Below me, my mother’s body lies crumpled on the marble floor. I run to her, shouting her name, gather her into my arms. She is already dead. I knew she would be, but I still sob, begging her to come back to me. Her hair is loose and messy, draped across her face. I push it aside. The hair falls away, and instead of my mother’s face, I see Amon’s mask staring back at me. 

I startle to my feet, dropping her body. Amon’s cold eyes stare up at me through the mask. There is a sound above me. My father stands at the top of the stairs, arms limp at his side. He wears Amon’s mask too. I turn to run, trying to open the front door. It’s locked, motionless against my greatest efforts to open it. I turn back, looking for somewhere to escape. Amon is across the room, walking toward me steadily. I try to move, to run, but I cannot.

My mother is rising from the floor, standing lopsided, the burns across her body red and snarling. My father descends the stairs, slowly. They flank Amon as he approaches, their masked faces blank and terrifying. 

“What have you done to them?” I scream at Amon. “What have you done?”

Amon reaches out, gripping me by the throat, pressing me back against the door. I struggle in this grasp, but he is impossibly strong. My breath is failing. I lash out in desperation, tearing his mask away.

It is not Amon beneath the mask. It’s me. 

I’m staring into my own face and she stares back, unflinching. Her eyes are dead and cruel. A smile stretches wide and horrible across her face. 

I jerk awake, lying flat on my back, drenched in a cold sweat, a panicked gasp ripping from my lips. I am trembling furiously. My heart lunges at my ribs like a chained animal. I sit up, flinging my legs over the side of the bed. I catch my reflection in the mirror across the room. I look terrified, pale, shaken. 

“It was just a dream,” I whisper. The girl in the mirror does not seem comforted. 

The image of my own face, of the cruelty there, burns behind my eyes like a brand, white hot and painful. I hold my head in my hands, trying to banish the memory. It does not go. My heart still pounds, begging me for an escape. I want to give it, but I can’t. I am caught in a trap, and I am both the beast and the cage. 


	7. Chapter 7

I’m nervous as I disembark from the ferry and walk down the dock toward Air Temple Island. The bouquet of flowers is gripped tightly in my hand and I can’t help but feel self conscious. I still haven’t been able to figure out if this is a normal thing for friends to do. I have half a mind to toss the damn thing into the water, but before I can I see a figure moving out of the temple ahead. The Avatar jogs toward me, waving. 

“Asami, hey!”

She is trailed by three floating children, their legs crossed in mid-air, chattering and laughing as they follow her over. These must be Councilman Tenzin’s offspring. I had somehow forgotten that there would be children at this dinner. I am not well-versed in handling anyone much younger than myself. This will be... interesting. 

The Avatar comes to a stop in front of me. She opens her mouth to speak, but she’s cut off as the airbenders swarm in. 

“Korra, introduce us!”

“Are you Asami?”

“You’re pretty!”

I don’t know where to look - the children are floating in rapid circles around us. Their movement makes me feel a little dizzy. One of them - the oldest by the looks of her - stops of her own accord, standing beside the Avatar with her hands folded. She looks up at me with a small, earnest smile. I give her a small smile back. 

The other two are still going at full speed. 

“How do you know Korra? Are you friends?”

“Where did you get those flowers? Why are you so tall?”

“ _ Guys _ ,” the Avatar says emphatically. Her back foot moves almost imperceptibly, and two columns erupt from the earth, catching each of the children in a rocky clamp. I expect them to be upset, but they just laugh. It’s a strange sight. I had to keep myself from startling at the sound of the rock and earth shifting so suddenly. They didn’t even flinch. 

“This is Asami,” the Avatar says. She looks up at me. “Asami, these are the airbending kids - Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo.”

“Very good to meet all of you,” I say to them. 

The Avatar’s attention goes to the flowers in my arms. “Are these for Pema?”

“Oh.” That hadn’t even occurred to me. Of course - flowers for the hostess. That’s probably significantly more normal than flowers for a friend. “Yes, they are.”

The Avatar smiles. “Come on, you can give them to her yourself.”

She leads me toward the temple, the children in tow. The oldest, Jinora, walks beside the two of us, clearly trying to display her maturity. The other two have no such concerns. They’re spinning around us again like a couple of manic dragon-butterflies, firing questions at me so rapidly it’s hard to keep up. 

“Where do you live?”

“In Republic City.”

“In that big tall building?”

“Well, no, just in a regular house.”

“We live in a temple. It’s big! All the acolytes live here too. They love us because we can air bend.”

“Daddy says you’re a respectable young woman! I think he’s right.”

“Well, thank you-”

“Why is your hair so long?”

“Oh, I guess, because I grew it-”

“What’s that on your sleeves?”

“Those are gears-”

“Why are there gears on your sleeves?”

“It’s the logo from my father’s company-”

“Who’s your father?” 

“What’s a logo?”

“ _ Okay, _ ” the Avatar cuts in. “That is quite enough, you two. Go tell your parents Asami is here.”

It takes some urging but Korra finally gets the two younger ones to speed off, arguing loudly as they go. 

“I’m faster than you!”

“Nuh-uh, I’m faster!”

The Avatar sighs heavily, rolling her eyes conspiratorially at Jinora.

“Hey, would you mind keeping an eye on those two, and make sure your parents actually know we’re coming?”

“Of course,” Jinora says, obviously trying to hide her pleasure at being assigned such an important, singular task. She primly presses her knuckles together. A rush of wind sweeps past as she folds up her legs and zooms off after her siblings. 

The Avatar puffs out her cheeks, exhaling heavily once Jinora is out of earshot. “Well. Sorry about that. The kids can be...a lot.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” I say, waving her off. “Kids are kids, right?”

“Yeah, they sure are,” she laughs. She glances over at me. “I’m really glad you could make it, Asami.”

I meet her gaze, smiling back. It doesn’t hurt so much today. “Me too.”

We walk in silence for a moment. Korra clears her throat and I look over at her. Her eyes are downcast, and a slight blush colors her cheeks. She wants to say something to me. I find myself slowing, turning toward her, wanting to make myself completely present to her for reasons I cannot name. She looks up at me, her lips parting to speak. Our eyes meet and the world inexplicably slows and stops for an instant, just an instant, and for an eternity. 

I am face to face with the Avatar. Her eyes shine in the glow of the lamplight from the temple. I cannot look away, but I feel our hands drifting toward each other in the motion of her arm, and the motion of mine. I look into her eyes and the image from my nightmare glows in the back of my mind, a live coal, that expression of cruelty etched across my face, across my being. Does she see it? Does she see me? 

Her words seem to be forgotten. She searches my expression. She does not look afraid. Is it because I am not cruel? Or is it because she is blind? 

Her eyebrows crease ever so slightly, a question appearing in the movement. It’s a question I can somehow understand. It’s a question I cannot answer. I want to tell her something instead. I want to spill the truth out like blood between us. I want to make the kill clean. 

_ I am sorry for what I have done. I am sorry for what I will do. _

A voice belts out across the courtyard, shattering the silence.

“ _ KORRRRRRAAAAAAA! MOM SAYS DINNER IS READY!” _

The moment splinters and we are back where we were, the Avatar looking beyond me, flustered and impatient. 

“Alright, we’re coming!”

I have to look away from her. I have to gather myself. We start back toward the temple, climbing the stairs in silence. The Avatar leads me inside. 

Councilman Tenzin and his small, very pregnant wife turn as we enter the dining room. 

“Pema, Tenzin, this is Asami,” the Avatar says. “Asami - Tenzin, my mentor, and his wife Pema.”

I hand the bouquet of flowers over to Pema. “Thank you so much for inviting me into your home.”

“It’s very good to finally meet you in person,” Councilman Tenzin says. 

“We’ve heard so much about you from Korra,” Pema pipes up, her voice sweet. The Avatar makes a small noise, sounding slightly choked. I glance at her, but she is pointedly avoiding my gaze. 

They’ve heard a lot about me. What did the Avatar say? What could she have told them about me? Do they suspect something? Am I in danger?

But the energy of the room is calm. Councilman Tenzin’s shoulders are relaxed, Pema’s eyes kind. I do not sense a threat in their words. It’s an unfamiliar sensation, but I’ll take it as a good sign. 

“So, who’s hungry?” the Avatar asks, her voice a little too loud. 

“ _ I AM,”  _ Meelo bellows from the doorway. 

I take a seat at the low table. Pema lowers herself gingerly on one side of me, and Jinora takes the place on my other side. She holds her hands in her lap nervously, glancing up and away quickly when she notices I’m watching her. The Avatar sits across the table. She notices Jinora’s shy expression, and looks up at me, raising her eyebrows and grinning. Her expression says,  _ well, someone likes you. _

I feel oddly touched, and distinctly conscious of Jinora’s attention to my every move. I’ve been idolized by many strangers, but never by someone quite so young. I get the strong urge to make a good impression on the girl. Something in the back of my mind clamors to remind me why I’m here, why good impressions on any bender are a pipe dream. I shove it down. I am allowed precious few moments of peace. I am determined that this will be one of them. 

The dinner is a delicious, entertaining affair. Ikki and Meelo take turns firing questions at me, dodging Pema’s swipes and Tenzin’s scoldings. When they grow bored of that, they begin antagonizing each other. The Avatar is sandwiched between the two and spends a good portion of the meal staving off their attempts at culinary warfare. More than once she catches my eye, giving me that crooked smile, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. It makes me laugh. 

Amidst the barely-controlled chaos, I manage to have a somewhat normal conversation with the Councilman and Pema. Councilman Tenzin is interested in my father’s business and my place within it. He seems impressed that I’m one of the company’s top engineers, shaking his head in wonder after I describe one of the most recent prototypes I’m working on.

“Incredible,” he says. “I’m more of a traditionalist myself, but the kind of knowledge needed to understand technology of that caliber - it is truly impressive.”

I feel a little speechless at the sincerity of the compliment. I pick up a clump of rice in my chopsticks. “It’s not very high-level stuff, really. It’s never been up to my father’s standards, anyway.”

Councilman Tenzin grunts. “I have the utmost respect for Hiroshi, but if that’s what he’s told you, I have my doubts about his clarity of judgement.”

“Agreed,” the Avatar chimes in emphatically. “That’s not even half the stuff Asami has been working on. She told me all about her work over lunch. I mean, she’s got hobby projects that would take me another few Avatar cycles to get the hang of, and those are just the ones she does for fun.”

“It’s not a big deal, really-” I begin. 

Pema lays a hand on my arm, laughing. “It’s alright, Asami. We won’t tell your father that you’re a better engineer than he is.”

The Avatar and Councilman Tenzin chuckle at that as well. I feel a blush rise in my cheeks, and I can’t help but smile a little myself. 

The conversation and laughter flow easily. I feel out of my element - I’m used to stately dinners with the wealthiest citizens of Republic City, dinners where business is the main topic and jokes that don’t fawn on someone’s ego are almost taboo. It’s strange to not feel like a game piece, a disposable pretty face who is only invited along to help bolster her father’s business proposals by buttering up his prospective clients with smiles and excessive praise. I am not expected to be a good daughter here. I am not in danger of punishment if I say or do something wrong. It seems I could do no wrong at all. 

Even Councilman Tenzin, who I have always seen as a harsh, rigid man, is significantly more good natured than I ever expected. I have only ever seen him in professional situations, of course, but it comes somewhat as a surprise that some people are  _ more  _ pleasant at home than the face they put on in public. My father is the only person I’ve ever seen in both situations, and he has always been the opposite - pleasant and friendly in public, but the moment the doors are closed....

My bruises ache. I ignore them. 

Eventually the conversation dies down. Pema pushes herself to her feet and begins clearing the dishes.

“Let me help you,” I tell her. 

“No, Asami, you are a guest here. You’re not doing our dishes.”

“I’ve got it, Pema,” the Avatar says. “You rest.”

Councilman Tenzin helps steady his wife, who holds the small of her back as she stretches.

“Children,” Tenzin says. “Help Korra with the dishes.”

After he’s left the room, the Avatar begins doling out instructions like a drill sergeant. “Meelo! I want you on cup duty, stat! Ikki, you’re my plates girl. Jinora, you’re officially on Asami watch. Let’s move, move, move, people!”

It works like a charm. The younger two are suddenly bustling around, their faces serious and war-like as they accomplish the tasks assigned to them with gusto. Jinora looks over at me, her expression shy and excited. 

“Want to see our shrine garden?”

“I’d love to.”

She takes me out the back of the temple and down a small walkway into an enclosed courtyard area encircled with hedges and flower shrubs of all kinds. The greenery sits on a tiered dais, five layers deep. Stone shrines, intricately carved with ancient writings, are nestled in among the plants. The air is light and perfumed, the sky above beginning to tint a beautiful rosy gold. 

Jinora begins talking, telling me about the history behind each of the shrines, what they stand for, which spirits they honor, the significance of their proximity to the temple. I listen closely, nodding every so often so she knows I’m paying attention. Her shyness melts away as she speaks, her face showing how enraptured she is by the knowledge she shares with me. 

She reminds me of myself - a bright young girl, a little unsure, a little shy, but so full of curiosity and more understanding than she knows what to do with. 

She finishes her explanation of the shrines, and looks up at me expectantly.

“Wow, Jinora,” I say sincerely. “You have so much knowledge about this place. Where did you learn all of that?”

A pleased blush colors her cheeks, but she shrugs as casually as she can manage. “Here and there. I do a lot of reading when I’m not practicing airbending.”

For a moment, just for a moment, I had allowed myself to forget that she is a bender too. Amon’s mask flashes before my eyes. His voice is clearly etched into my memory -  _ “I will end the line of airbenders permanently.” _

I have only seen Amon take someone’s bending once. It was a private display, to show the Equalists what he was truly capable of. He’d captured some waterbender, a nobody from the slums. Amon had him on his knees, hands bounds, helpless. It was over in a moment - Amon pressed his thumb to the man’s forehead, and he collapsed, freed from his bending. He was alive, but his eyes had gone dark, his body completely limp. It was as if he’d died. Or some part of him had. 

It was for the best, Amon said. For everyone’s good. And he was right. Life would go on for the bender. He would find a way to live powerless as we have, finally equal, no more dangerous than anyone else. But the thought of Jinora kneeling under the cold gaze of Amon’s mask, of her bright, hopeful eyes going dim, her small body crumpling to the ground, makes my stomach turn. 

_ She’ll be free _ , I insist to myself. 

This is Amon’s promise. It is for their own good, and ours. We are freeing benders from the burden of hurting anyone else.

I think of my father’s fists.

“Hey, you two,” comes the Avatar’s voice. She walks up to stand alongside us. 

I force myself to smile at her. “Jinora was just giving me quite the education about these shrines.”

The Avatar smiles down at Jinora. “I’m sure she was. Jinora knows more about the history of the temple than all the acolytes put together.”

Jinora blushes again, turning her chin to her shoulder. I think of her kneeling, falling, empty. 

“Jinora?” Councilman Tenzin’s voice echoes from beyond the courtyard. “Come inside now, it’s nearly bedtime.”

“Coming,” Jinora calls back, looking crestfallen. 

“It was wonderful to meet you,” I say to her. “I hope I get to visit again soon so you can tell me more about the rest of the island.”

She nods, the smile returning to her face. “Goodnight, Asami. It was a pleasure getting to meet you. Goodnight, Korra!”

She turns and trots off. 

The Avatar watches after her with a chuckle. “She’s a good kid.”

“She’s sweet.”

The Avatar turns back to me. “Well, you survived dinner.”

“Tenzin’s family is lovely.”

The Avatar laughs. “I think that’s laying it on a little thick. Meelo and Ikki are....a lot.”

“It was nice. I haven’t had a real family meal since…”

I’m an idiot. I’m a fucking idiot.  _ Since my mother died _ hangs in the air between us, and the Avatar looks away, her expression falling. My heart hurts. I hadn’t let myself think it earlier, but it’s true - I haven’t been around a real family, a family that loves each other, that cares more about casual conversations than discussing business plans, since my mother’s death. It makes my breath come short. I wait for the anger, the fury that usually rolls in to drown the sadness, to give me purpose. 

It doesn’t come, but I don’t have time to worry because for the third time in as many weeks, the Avatar saves me from myself. 

“Do you want to take a walk with me?” she asks. “I could show you the island a little more. Unless you need to leave…?”

Of course, the island. I have to scope out the island. For Amon. 

“I’d love a walk,” I say. I can’t meet her eyes. “Let’s do it.”

She gives me a wide tour of the grounds, showing me past each of the four temples that dot the island. Every so often we pass an acolyte, who always bows deeply to the Avatar. She seems embarrassed by the honorifics, chuckling nervously or touching the back of her neck as she greets them. 

“I know that’s the norm for them,” she tells me, “but honestly it feels pretty weird sometimes. I’ve tried to get them to stop, but they insist.”

White Lotus guards patrol the perimeter in pairs. I know I should be paying attention to them closely, clocking their rotations and routes, but I find my attention drifting as the Avatar talks animatedly about her favorite parts of living on the island, or interesting historical facts about the different buildings and shrines. She is a livewire, bright and relentlessly enthusiastic, utterly captivating, nearly impossible to look away from. I study her profile as she speaks, the angle of her jaw, the movement of her lips and teeth and tongue, the lift in her eyebrows and wrinkles around her eyes when she laughs. I hardly know what to make of her.

I should know. I should feel hatred when I look at her face. I should be reminded of everything I’ve lost, everything I have to gain by making her my enemy. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, or the nightmares I’ve been having so often lately, or the peaceful atmosphere of the island, but tonight I feel my grasp on my anger slipping. It is difficult to remember what all of this is for when I am with her. 

It is temporary. I will remember my resolve soon. Maybe not tonight. But soon. 

We stop beneath the tallest temple on the island. Its spire juts into the sky, a good ten stories tall, the rippling layers of the various leveled roofs making a black pattern against the darkening sky. The Avatar tells me about the history of this building - the first to be built on the island, it was created as a sanctuary to honor the line of Avatars that had gone before. 

“I guess when I die, they’ll add my statue to the lineup,” she says. 

She is quiet then. I look over at her. Her arms are by her sides, her hair falling back from her face as she gazes up at the towering building. Her face is serious, contemplative, more still and somber than I’ve ever seen it before. She looks heavy. 

Then she looks at me and seems to be jarred out of her thoughts. She gives me a small smile. Her eyes are soft. I don’t know if I smile back, but she doesn’t seem to be bothered by that. 

“Come on,” she says. “There’s something I want to show you.”

She leads me back across the island, but instead of going to the airbender’s temple, we go down a path through a copse of trees. When we emerge on the other side, we’re on a cliff near the edge of the island, high above the shores below. The Avatar sits cross-legged on an outcropping of rock at the edge of the cliff, patting the stone beside her for me to sit. I take my place beside her. 

The entirety of Republic City is on display, brilliant in the distance. A cool wind sweeps in off the water, raising goosebumps on the back of my neck. Overhead, the night sky is bright and cold, the stars glittering in the blackness. 

“Not many people come out this way,” the Avatar says. “I like to come here to be alone.”

“It’s a beautiful view,” I say. “So peaceful.”

She nods, leaning back on her hands, looking up. “I still haven’t gotten used to this sky.”

I follow her gaze upwards to the stars. “Did you not get to go outside much at night on the training compound?”

“No, I did,” she says. “But that was in the southern hemisphere. The stars are all different here. I had the constellations memorized at the compound, but here… Sometimes I’ll feel like I’m finally starting to feel at home, but then I look up, and it’s like being on a different planet.” 

I look over at her upturned face, illuminated dimly in the starlight. I think of earlier, the closeness of her, the look in her eyes as she searched my face. She turns her head, meeting my gaze, and smiles. That smile. She’s always smiling when she looks at me. I feel a shock of coldness in my chest, suddenly and inexplicably afraid that she may someday understand who I am, who I truly am, that her smile may vanish forever once she does. 

The feeling is overwhelming, frightening in its intensity, and I have to look away from her. I turn my eyes toward the night sky. I have not watched the stars like this since my mother died. She loved the stars. She had taught me every constellation in the northern hemisphere, spinning stories of the myths and histories of the cosmos until I was dizzy with them. 

I have not thought of my mother so much in years. It occurs to me that I have not been able to dwell on a single pleasant memory of her until this moment. It seems like a strange twist of fate that I have the Avatar to thank for it. 

Without thinking, I point to a string of stars zig-zagging directly overhead. “That one is Su-Ri. She’s the one who created the rainbow after her brother, Su-Ra, sent the world its first thunderstorm.”

The Avatar looks at me, her expression excited. Then she leans in, looking up. “Show me where?”

I have to get close to her, our heads bumping as I point in her line of sight, tracing the shape of the constellation. She is warm - it’s no wonder she can go sleeveless even in this pre-winter chill, she practically radiates heat. I notice that she has a very distinctive smell. I’d caught traces of it in the time we’ve spent together, but being this close magnifies it tenfold - it’s a rough, warm scent, musky, mingled with the sandalwood incense that they burn in all the temples. I have to keep myself from getting distracted by it. 

I can’t tell how much time passes, but I tell her about all the constellations I can remember. We eventually lie side by side, our heads close together, bodies angled slightly away - it’s easier to point out the stars that way. She’s full of awe and curiosity, drinking in the stories and myths, asking some questions but mostly just listening. Once I’ve exhausted the well of my cosmic knowledge, we lie there in silence for a while. 

“How do you know so much about the stars?” she asks me.

I don’t answer right away. I gauge the pain in my chest as I think of my mother. It is bearable. Not as overwhelming as I’d thought it would be, but I feel stifled laying on my back like this. I sit up, bracing my hands against the stone, inhaling deeply. 

“My mother told me,” I say. “She loved the stars. Constellation myths were my bedtime stories.”

The Avatar sits up beside me. She is quiet for a long time. I wonder if I’ve said too much, but then she speaks. 

“She sounds like a wonderful mother.”

I almost break. A flood of emotion rises up through me. I am furious. She is the Avatar. She represents every bender on earth, including the bastards that murdered my mother. She is the reason I have no mother. But she’s also warm and kind and sitting so close to me I think I can feel her heart beating. She’s the only reason I’ve felt safe enough in fifteen years to think about my mother beyond the memory of her dead body. 

More than that, the Avatar is right. My mother was a wonderful mother. She was a bright light. She was the source of all my happiness. She was the heart of our family, and when she died, so did we. 

I have missed her so much, and no one knows. My father changed the day she died. He became a callous, volatile man, no longer the father I once knew. I have been alone for all this time, drowning in my grief, letting it ferment into anger, telling no one because there was no one to tell. I feel tears pushing at the backs of my eyes, making my throat tight, clamping down on my chest. One breaks free, streaking down my cheek. I push it away quickly. 

“I’m sorry,” I say. I can’t look at the Avatar. Once again I’ve put her into an extremely uncomfortable position, exposing her to the raw force of my emotions. I’ll be lucky if she forgives me this time. 

But then she touches my hand. Her skin is warm as her fingers curl gently around my palm. She holds me there, carefully, quietly. I should shake her off. I should be repulsed at her touch. Instead my fingers close around hers. 

We sit there in silence for a long time. I have to press tears from my cheeks every so often with my free hand. The Avatar doesn’t speak. She doesn’t ask me questions. She is just there, her hand closed protectively around mine. The stone below us begins to get cold. The breeze sweeping in from the water makes me shiver. I realize that we have been out here for hours. I startle to myself, letting go of her hand. 

“I’m sorry, it’s so late. I should go.”

She stands with me. “I didn’t even realize the time.” She looks out to the docks below us. “I don’t think the ferries are running anymore.”

“That’s okay.” I’m embarrassed at how thick my voice sounds. “I’ll call a private service, I’m sure someone can come get me.”

“Oh, okay,” the Avatar says. She looks at me, hesitates, then blurts, “You could stay here for the night, if you want. It’s probably not as nice as your place, but we have plenty of room, and I can lend you something to sleep in. If you want. I get it if you’d rather leave.”

I need to leave. I need to get off this goddamned island with its intoxicating peace and stillness. I need to get away from the Avatar, clear my head, refocus myself. 

“You’re sure it’s okay if I stay? I don’t want to put Tenzin’s family out,” I hear myself say instead. 

“It’s way more than okay, I promise. Come on, I’ll get you set up.”

She takes me back to the temple, bringing me to her room - it’s the room at the furthest end of the west wing of the temple. This information should mean something to me. I’m sure it will once I’ve had a chance to rest. 

The Avatar digs through one of her drawers, then holds out a set of clothes to me. 

“These should fit you okay. I know I’m not as tall as you, um, I could maybe see if Tenzin has something-”

“This is perfect,” I say quietly. “Thank you.”

I think she’s worried about me, the way she scans my face, but she still smiles a small crooked smile. 

She shows me to a guest bedroom, sparsely decorated and only a thin blanket covering the mattress. She seems embarrassed by the minimalism.

“I’m sorry, it’s not much.”

“Korra,” I say. I am tired, more tired than I’ve let myself feel in a long time. I could fall asleep on a rock. A comfortable monk’s chamber is nowhere near the bottom of my list for preferred sleeping arrangements. “This is more than enough for me. I promise.”

“Okay,” she says. 

She lets me know that the bathroom is right down the hall if I need it.

“And if you need anything, you know where to find me.”

I nod, tell her goodnight, and head to the bathroom to change. She gave me a pair of blue sweatpants and a simple white shirt. The pants are a little short, stopping just above my ankles, but the cloth is thick and warm and comforting. The shirt smells like her. 

The hallway is dark and I pad back to my room, trying to make as little noise as possible. I step inside, closing the door behind me. The bed has been remade in my absence, piled with a few extra blankets and a thicker pillow than the one that was on it originally. 

I climb into bed with a heavy sigh. I expect to fall asleep quickly, but my mind is full and it keeps me awake. I lay there in the darkness, listening to the sound of my own breathing, trying to stave off the onslaught of thoughts. It’s no use. I throw the blankets back, going to the window and opening it to the night air outside. I grip the windowsill, taking a deep breath. 

My mother’s face hovers behind my eyes. So much of her has slipped away over the years. I cannot remember the sound of her voice. But she had very faint freckles, and when she laughed her nose would wrinkle, and she used to hold me closely and snuggle her face into my neck until it tickled. I would squeal and laugh, trying to squirm away while also never wanting her to let me go. 

A sob escapes me and I clap a hand over my mouth to stifle the sound. Tears pour over my hand. I sag against the windowsill, the grief roaring in to take me over. I remember suddenly why I have held it at bay all these years - I think it could kill me. 

There is a sound behind me and I spin. I have to blink tears away to see clearly. The Avatar stands at the door, looking worried. 

“Asami? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I say out of habit, pressing the tears away with my palms. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

She moves across the room to stand in front of me. I want to look away, but I can’t. Her expression is mournful as she watches me, her eyebrows pressed together in deep concern. She reaches up, cupping my cheek. I think I should be surprised at the touch, but I’m not. She presses a tear away with her thumb. 

“Asami,” she says. 

Then she leans in and kisses me. I should pull away. I don’t. I lean into her, opening my mouth to hers, pulling her closer to me. She wraps an arm around my waist, the hand on my cheek moving into my hair. I taste her, the tang of her lips, the warmth of her tongue. She sighs into the kiss, and I do too. 

I can feel the tears building again. I try to fight them back, but I can’t help myself. As they spill out, Korra pulls back. Her blue eyes are soft and sad as she holds my face in both her hands. She presses at the tears with her thumb, then kisses my cheek and pulls me into an embrace, holding me tightly. 

“It’s okay,” she says into my ear. 

I begin to cry, burying my face in her shoulder. She holds me, warm and safe and strong. I have not been held like this in fifteen years. I have been so lonely. 

She stiffens suddenly. I try to pull back, apologizing hastily. She doesn’t let me go. Her arms are locked around my body. I say her name, pushing at her, trying to get free. A sudden wind kicks up, throwing the window open wide, slamming the door on its hinges. It’s as though a tornado has entered the room. The Avatar won’t let me go. She turns her head and looks at me. Her eyes are glowing white.

I bolt upright, gasping for breath. The blankets are tangled tightly around me. I flail at them, throwing them from my body, stumbling from bed to the half-open window and closing it. I’m shaking, and I try to steady myself against the window sill. I close my eyes, catching my breath, putting a hand over my racing heart. 

I can taste her lips. I can see her glowing eyes. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello, fam! We're back at it again with a new chapter. I want to thank you all so much for your patience on this update. About halfway through writing this chapter, I got hit with an idea for a Korvira fic that wouldn't let me rest until I wrote it (hopefully will be getting that mammajamma posted before too long), so I've been busy working on that these last few weeks. But now after so much delightful inspiration from Korrasami's anniversary, I'm back and raring to go with some more of this bad boy. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for your support and love on this fic. If you're enjoying what I've created so far, please feel more than welcome to drop a comment and let me know! Your words of encouragement and appreciation do more for my creative process than I can adequately express. 
> 
> Now, onto the chapter!

I’m awake early the next morning. I didn’t sleep very well. I had a dream, I think, but it’s fading fast. I close my eyes, trying to hold onto it, and I can see black hair, green eyes. I can smell something faint and floral. I can see stars. 

Asami. 

The image of her tearful face rises behind my eyes, the sound of her voice thick with emotion, the feeling of her hand as she gripped mine tightly. My heart hurts. I’d had half a mind to offer to stay with her, to sleep on the floor in her room so maybe she wouldn’t feel so alone. But that seemed way too forward, so I’d settled on staying awake late into the night, listening for any signs of distress, anything indicating that she might need me. 

I thought I’d heard her gasp at one point. It made me sit up in bed, holding perfectly still, putting my ear close to the wall to listen. I heard her footsteps and the click of her window closing. After that it was quiet. I laid back down and stayed awake as long as I could, alert for any other sounds. I didn’t hear anything else, but I wonder if she slept through the night, or at all. 

Either way, I’m glad she was here. I’d be lying to myself if I said I hadn’t wanted her to stay the night. It was comforting to know she wasn’t alone in that mansion with her father. If nothing else, even as sadly as the night had ended, knowing she was safe gave me peace of mind. 

I should check on her. 

I’m not even all the way down the hall when I notice that her bedroom door is open. I approach and look inside. The bed is made, the clothes I lent her last night folded neatly on the mattress. Asami is gone. I search the temple quickly - the dining room, kitchen, altar room - but come up empty handed. She’s not in the courtyard either. Did she leave already? Did she get away as soon as she could? Did I just force her into agreeing to stay?

Then I see a tall figure standing at the end of the docks, distinct in her red jacket and long hair. I jog down toward her, relief and nerves twisted up in equal parts in my chest. It’s not until I call her name and she turns toward me that I realize that she left without saying goodbye. That she probably didn’t want to see me this morning. But it’s too late to turn back now. I stop in front of her.

“Korra,” she says, sounding surprised. 

“Asami, hey,” I say, a little winded. “You’re leaving?”

She glances away from me, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I just have a busy day today, thought I’d get back as early as I could.”

“Right, of course.” 

She’s quiet, her eyes downcast. She looks sad, and tired. Not exactly how I’d hoped to send her off from her first visit. 

“Well, look, I’m really glad you could come over. Even though last night didn’t end on the best note.”

“I appreciate having a place to stay the night. Tell Tenzin and his family thank you again for me.”

She glances up at me, and as our eyes meet there’s that same breathless feeling I had when we were walking up to the temple last night - that overwhelming sense of knowing, of familiarity, a desire to touch her cheek, to make her know somehow that I would do anything to protect her. Her green eyes are bright, striking even in the pale morning light, but heavy with something I can’t name. Her lips part for a moment, and like a bolt of lightning I imagine pulling her close, leaning up, kissing her.

I look away quickly. I hope she can’t see the blush that makes my face feel hot. She turns toward the bay and I can see the first ferry of the day chugging toward us. She’s about to leave and I can’t stand the idea of knowing that she might not come back. 

“Would you want to come watch me practice for pro-bending?” I blurt. 

She looks back to me, her eyebrows raised. “Oh, um, I mean, I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

“You wouldn’t be! Not at all. The guys have been really wanting to meet you properly.”

“Okay,” she says, smiling a little. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “That would be fun.”

“Okay,” I say, nodding. “Great. Um, we’ll be at the arena tomorrow afternoon. Mako has us practicing more than usual for the championship coming up, so we’ll be there from noon to pretty much whenever he thinks we’ve met his standards. You can come by any time.”

“I’ll be there,” she says.

\--

“Are you sure she’s gonna come?” Mako asks, hefting a barbell over his shoulders. “It’s getting kind of late.”

“She said she would,” I say, trying to ignore the doubt gnawing at the back of my mind. He’s right - it’s almost five, we’ve been at practice for hours, but I haven’t heard from her at all. I shake off the thoughts. “She’s not exactly just sitting around all day. She keeps really busy with Future Industries stuff.”

“Sure,” Mako snorts. “She probably just doesn’t have time for some lame pro-bending team.”

“Hey, speak for yourself, bro,” Bolin cuts in, bending a quick succession of three earth disks into the net across the room. “I bet she’s just nervous about hanging out with the future champs of pro-bending, and honestly, I can’t blame her. We’re kind of amazing.”

I step over to the barbell as Mako sets it down, loading on a few extra plates before hefting it onto my shoulders. The weight feels good, gives me something else to think about. I drop into a back squat, careful to keep my weight on my heels, lowering until I feel the tension in my hips. Then I press back up, lifting hard into the burn in my quads. I straighten at the top of the movement, then start back down for the second round. 

She said she would come. She’ll be here.

_ Won’t she? _

I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t show. It’s not like she’s had the best time when she’s been around me. Sure, we’ve had some good conversations, but at the end of every hang-out, there’s always something that ends up weighing things down. It’s hardly fair for me to expect her to want to keep on seeing me when that’s been our pattern. Maybe I’m just doomed to forever remind her, some way or another, of her dead mom. Maybe I’m just not meant to be her friend. 

The idea puts an unreasonably large pit in my stomach. I grit my teeth, shoving the thoughts away with a grunt as I squat again. I concentrate on the weight on my shoulders, the feeling of the bar in my palms, the flex and tightening of my legs as I take the brunt of the squat, the burn as I push up out of it. A trickle of sweat streaks its way down my back. I breathe into the exercise, focusing on the feel of my body. 

This is what I can rely on. Anytime the loneliness became too much at the White Lotus camp, anytime my thoughts started running away from me, I could always turn to training to clear my head. I might not be able to fix anything else, but I can make myself strong, and that’s better than nothing. 

I’ve lost count of my reps. It doesn’t matter. I can go until my muscles give out, and then go again once I catch my breath. But I don’t get the chance to hit burnout before Bolin pipes up behind me. 

“Oh, hey! You must be Asami!”

I look over my shoulder quickly. Asami stands in the doorway across the room, looking stunning as always. 

“Asami, hey!” I call.

I heft the barbell off my shoulders, dropping it with a clang, and turn, dragging my forearm across my embarrassingly sweaty forehead. She smiles at me, giving me a small wave, and I can’t help the way my heart jumps. I beckon her into the gym, snagging a towel from the weight rack as I walk to meet her.

“You made it!”

“Sorry I’m so late,” she says. “I got a little held up with work. My dad needed my help on a new project.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I smile. “I’m just glad you could come.” I turn to Mako and Bolin. “Guys, this is Asami. Asami, this is Mako and Bolin, my teammates.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Asami says. 

“Hey,” Mako says, crossing his arms across his chest. I can’t place his expression, but as his eyes travel down her body and back up again, an inexplicable anger flares in my chest. 

“Hi, Asami, I’m Bolin,” Bolin says, throwing an arm around Mako’s shoulders, disrupting his surveillance of Asami. Mako shoots an annoyed look at Bolin. With his eyes off Asami, the tension in me eases. I feel my fist unclench. 

Bolin continues, “I’m the more handsome of the two bending brothers, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Alright, Bolin,” I say, shoving his shoulder playfully. “Cut it out.”

“What? I’m serious!”

“So you’re a fan of pro-bending?” Mako asks, stepping closer to Asami. 

“Oh, I’m not really familiar with it,” she says. “Korra just invited me to watch you guys practice.”

Mako opens his mouth to say something else, but I step in front of him, facing Asami. 

“Speaking of! You mind if we keep practicing?” I ask her. 

“Not at all! Like I said, I don’t want to interrupt.”

“You can sit on those benches over there. Make yourself comfortable,” I tell her. Mako is heading back to the weights.

_ Not so fast.  _

“Mako, you up for some sparring?” I say. It’s not really a question, and I grab a couple of sparring helmets from their shelf against the wall, jamming one of them into his chest. He gives me a weird look. I ignore it. “Bo, you’re the ref.”

“Oh, this is gonna be good,” Bolin says. He moves to the edge of the open sparring area, standing near where Asami sits. “Hope you’re buckled up, Asami, you’re in for a wild ride.”

“I can’t wait,” Asami says. 

I square up across from Mako. I wish waterbending was permitted in the gym. There’s something so satisfying about a water uppercut. I guess a regular uppercut will have to do. 

He takes his stance, hands in front of his face, his brows low. I can feel Asami’s eyes on me, and I throw caution to the wind. I rush him, lunging in with a jab. He dodges out of the way, cutting low and catching my ribs with a cross shot. It knocks the wind out of me and he dances back, hands up again. 

“Point, Mako!” Bolin crows. 

I growl, pacing back. It’s alright. It’s just one hit. He’s got plenty more coming to him. 

My next swing misses. He ducks it, using the counter momentum to catch my helmet with an elbow. 

“Two points, Mako! Three to win!” 

“I know how the rules work, Bolin,” I say, sounding a little more angry than I mean to. 

“Yeah, but Asami doesn’t,” Bolin says innocently. 

Asami. I think of Mako’s eyes on her, the self-satisfied look on his face. I lunge in again, jabbing with my right. He dodges it and I send in a left hook, catching him square on the ear. It’s lucky he’s got a helmet on. I’m sure his head is ringing anyway. He looks shaken as he darts back. 

“Point Korra!”

That’s right, motherfucker. Point Korra. 

He tries a cross-jab combo. Kid stuff; I dodge it easy. He ducks into a roundhouse. I dance back, and he barely misses. I swear I can feel the wind as his foot swings by. He rights himself and I strike, throwing a kick up toward his shoulder. He blocks it -  _ fucker _ \- and counters with a right hook. I duck under, landing a cross-jab combo in his side. I hear the breath leave his lungs in two quick bursts. 

“Woo, good one, Korra!” Bolin shouts gleefully. 

Mako shoots him a dirty look.

We circle each other carefully. Next point wins. I strangely feel like there’s a lot riding on this. I’m not going to let Mako take it from me. I wait for my opening. He tries a fake, moving as if to strike but pulling back last second. He almost gets a reaction out of me, but I manage to keep my guard up. I strike with a right hook. He blocks, then swings out with a jab. I dodge, then dart in, hooking my front leg around his, slamming my momentum into his shoulder. That does it. He loses his balance and falls backwards, landing on the ground with an audible thud, his breath whooshing out. 

“And Korra takes it, ladies and gentlemen! The crowd goes wild!” Bolin jumps up onto the bench beside Asami and cups his hands around his mouth, making a soft “ahhhhhhh” sound to imitate a roaring crowd. 

I can’t help it. I punch a fist into the air, whooping, laughing. Asami is smiling at me, chuckling a little, applauding to play along with Bolin’s antics. I feel a blush rise in my cheeks and I’m glad I have the helmet on to hide it. 

I reach down, pulling Mako to his feet. 

“Good match,” I tell him, and he just shrugs. 

“Sorry, bro,” Bolin says. “Better luck next time, huh?”

“Whatever,” Mako says. “I’m done for the day.”

“But Asami just got here!” Bolin whines. “We can’t just quit practice.”

“Do whatever you want, I’m hitting the showers,” Mako says over his shoulder, pulling off his helmet and tossing it toward the gear shelf.

“What’s with him?” Asami says. 

“Ah, he’s just a sore loser,” Bolin says. “He’ll be alright.”

I feel a little at a loss for words, flushed with the excitement of my win but also a little embarrassed and more than a little pissed that Mako ruined it with his bad attitude. But Bolin and his irrepressible optimism swoop in to save the day. 

“You ever watch a pro-bending game?” he asks Asami, putting his hands on his hips in the Bolin way he has. 

“Can’t say that I have,” Asami says. She glances at me with a small, incredulous smile on her face as if to say,  _ what’s with this goofball? _ I shrug, smiling back and silently blessing Bolin for being Bolin. 

Bolin looks staggered by her response, but he recovers quickly. “Okay, well, first of all - that’s a crime against nature. But second of all, that’s great news cause now we can show you how the rules work! Come on, it’s late enough I think we should be able to use the stadium.”

I haven’t been into the stadium when it’s been empty before. Bolin flips on a few auxiliary lights as we enter the changing room and they blast on, the sound echoing in the cavernous space. It’s dimmer than I’m used to, but there’s still plenty of light to see. 

“We can’t access all the lights from down here, but this should be good enough!” Bolin says brightly. 

As we step onto the playing area from the bridge, I glance over at Asami. She looks awed, her head tilted back to take in the view of the high-rise stands, the massive glass ceiling overhead that shows the sunset-orange sky outside. 

“Pretty cool, right?” I say to her. 

“It’s definitely impressive,” she nods. 

I like being here with her. The pro-bending arena has become a place of real happiness for me. I feel so alive when I’m playing. The competition of it, the challenge, the thrill of exerting every ounce of my bender training - it makes me feel at home. And having Asami here makes it all the more special. 

I move my hands at my sides, feeling into the water that lies beneath the surface of the platform. I pull it up through one of the grates, flowing it into a wide ribbon that arcs over my head and around my back. I turn into the movement, then flip around into a flying kick, sending the water blasting across the court and over the edge. I hear it splash down into the pool below. 

“Okay, now, see, that’s what we call an  _ illegal move _ ,” Bolin says, stepping up beside Asami. “See how Korra crossed over the middle line? Big no-no.”

“Shut up, Bolin,” I laugh. 

“Hey,  _ one _ of us has to be the professional. And as the official rule master of pro-bending, I’m afraid I have to give you a warning, miss Avatar.”

“Ooh, that sounds pretty serious,” Asami winces. 

I can’t say why exactly, but hearing her joke around with us like she’s always been a part of our group sends a rush of happiness through me. I have to bite back my smile to play along. 

“Apologies, mister rule master,” I say, throwing a sharp salute. “It won’t happen again, sir.”

“Very good, very good,” Bolin says in a posh voice. Then he snaps out of it and rubs his hands together. “Okay, Asami, time for a crash course in pro-bending rules!”

He runs her through the basics - the team set-ups, court structure, and point system, before moving on to explain how the game is played, how the teams win, what a knock-out is. When he starts talking about moves and strategies, he takes it upon himself to give a physical demonstration, bobbing and weaving like he’s facing off against an invisible opponent.

“So then if they get hit in this zone like  _ bam! _ then they gotta back up to this zone here. Which makes it harder to get to these guys over there, but I always like to hit them with a quick one-two, bop-bop, and knock ‘em sideways.”

Throughout his demonstration, he keeps emphasizing how  _ key _ the earthbending players are, not only to achieving victory, he says, but also to keep the game thrilling and captivating for the people. Nothing is more important than the people, of course, and, what can he say, he’s something of a fan favorite. Asami has an elbow propped up in one palm, the other hand holding her chin pensively, her brow furrowed in mock seriousness as she nods and “mm, mhm”s along with his self-aggrandizing. 

As Bolin digresses into a dramatic and highly embellished story of how he practically won the last three matches for us single-handedly, Asami catches my eye and winks. A flock of butterflies erupts in my chest and I grin back at her.

“There I was, last man standing, the single bender holding the line between the Fire Ferrets and sure defeat,” Bolin crows. 

I look at Asami pointedly, then glance sideways at the floor as I pull a thin trickle of water up through a grate. Asami catches on quickly and she tries to control her expression, folding her lips in and lifting a knuckle from her chin to cover the smile that pulls at the corners of her mouth. Bolin glances at her and she looks at him quickly, giving an emphatic nod to show how intently she’s still listening. 

“We were two points down, nothing left to lose, and I knew that the fate of our victory was resting on my sculpted shoulders.”

I trail the water through the air until it’s hovering right behind him, trying to keep my hand movements subtle so as not to attract his attention. 

“With a mighty yell, I started bending like m-aaaaaAAAAAAAHHH!” 

Bolins voice pitches up into a shriek as I drop the cold water down the back of his shirt. He dances around, swatting at his back frantically. Asami and I burst out laughing. 

“Korraaaaa!” Bolin yells. 

“Sorry, Bo,” I say between bursts of laughter. “Couldn’t help myself.”

“I’ll show you couldn’t help myself,” he bellows in mock outrage. 

He lunges forward, grabbing me in a playful headlock, wrestling me toward the edge of the court. He’s trying to toss me over into the water below, and I dig my feet in, trying to push his arms off, laughing and yelling. 

“Bolin, quit it! I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! Forgive me!”

I can hear Asami laughing, and Bolin’s voice has laughter just under the surface as he gives his best war cry. 

“No forgiveness, only vengeance!”

“Hey!” a voice cuts through our antics. 

Bolin releases me immediately and I look up toward the sound. It’s the gym owner, a cranky old guy I see puttering around every so often. He stands at a balcony overhead, shaking his fist at us. “You kids can’t be in here! This is private property!”

“Sorry, Wen!” Bolin yells as we all scramble for the exit. “Just showing our friend the space. We’re leaving!”

“Get outta here before I call the cops!” Wen shouts.

“We’re gone! We were never here!”

We pile out of the changing room and down the hall, trying to stifle our laughter in case we end up attracting Wen’s wrath. I lead us out the front door into the darkening evening and we all burst out laughing as soon as the door closes behind us. 

“Oh man, Mako’s gonna be so pissed when he hears about this,” Bolin hoots, holding his belly. 

“‘Uh, you guys can’t just break the  _ rules _ ,’” I say in my best, most nasal stern Mako voice. “‘Rules are-” I have to choke back another laugh, “Rules are rules, guys.’”

“Stop, Korra, I’m gonna throw up,” Bolin says, his voice high-pitched with barely-contained guffaws. He leans against my shoulder. “Hoo! I gotta breathe, I’m getting a cramp.”

“Sorry if I get you guys into any trouble,” Asami says, wiping an errant tear from the corner of her eye. 

Bolin waves her off, exhaling another chuckle, trying to catch his breath. “Nah, don’t worry about it! We’ll be fine. Wen’s a cranky old bastard but he won’t do anything to us. Glad we got to show you around a little.”

I’m getting my breath back now, but my sides ache a little from laughing so hard. 

“Now you’ll just have to come to a real match, get a real taste for the full pro-bending experience,” I say to Asami. “In a more legal setting, of course.”

“Legal is always good,” she laughs. 

“Well,” Bolin says. “I should head up, make sure Mako didn’t drown himself in the shower or something. It was great to meet you, Asami. See you around?”

“Definitely,” Asami says. 

I wave to Bolin as he heads back inside, and let out a big sigh, the last of the laughter finally fading from my lungs. 

“He’s fun,” Asami says, looking back at me. 

“Yeah, Bolin’s great. He’s the only thing that makes Mako palatable.”

Asami chuckles and nods, “I can see that.”

Her cheeks are a little flushed from the running and the laughing. I think this is the first time I’ve seen her so lighthearted, so at ease. It looks good on her. 

“Sorry our time got cut short in there,” I say. “But are you hungry? We could grab a bite to eat. Bolin showed me a great little dumpling cart a few blocks away.”

“Sounds amazing,” she says. 

“Let me grab my stuff, I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll wait in my car, I’m just parked across the street.”

I take a few minutes to get changed and put my hair back into my standard wolf-tails/pony-tail combo. I give myself a quick sniff check. I think I’m good, but I dab a little deodorant on just to be safe. When I come back outside, I see Asami leaned up against the car, her arms folded across her chest, the profile of her face illuminated in the warm glow of the streetlights. She seems lost in thought, a faraway look in her eyes. I wonder what’s happening behind them. 

She turns as I approach, the faraway look vanishing with a blink, a smile replacing it. 

“Ready to go?”

“Ready.”

“You want to drive?” she asks. “Since you know where it is?”

“Oh, um.” 

_ Shit. _

I rub the back of my neck. “I actually, I don’t know how to drive.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, the White Lotus isn’t exactly into tech, and I’ve always had Naga to get me around so I never needed to learn.”

She purses her lips thoughtfully, nodding. “Makes sense. Guess I’ll just have to teach you sometime. Hop in.”

“Teach me?” I say, my stomach dropping as I climb into the passenger seat. 

“Sure,” she laughs. “You’re the Avatar, you should know how to drive.”

I’m kicking myself. If she didn’t think I was some embarrassing dweeb already, she was going to the second I sat in the driver’s seat. I’d never so much as seen a Satomobile in person until I came to Republic City. I don’t know the first thing about cars, and I know even less about driving them. 

As she turns the car on, I find myself focusing on her movements closely. The stick thing in between our seats seems to be important. She moves that into various slots as she pulls the car away from the curb. Her feet might be moving, too, but only sometimes, and at odd intervals. It’s hard to tell from here. As we speed up, she moves the stick thing again, but I can’t tell why. Everything seemed to be working fine before she moved it, but also everything works fine after she moves it too. 

_ Spirits, cars are complex.  _

She laughs, startling me out of my intense focus on her hands, and I realize she’s been watching me stare down her driving motions like a crazy person. 

“This is the gear shift,” she says, patting the stick. “You use it to shift gears.”

I nod as if those words mean anything to me. “Got it. Gear shift shifts the gears. Okay.”

“The clutch is down by my foot, you won’t be able to see it from there.”

The clutch. The clutch?

“How...how do you clutch it?”

She looks confused for a minute and I feel my ears get hot. I must sound like the biggest dumbass. But then her expression clears as she realizes what I’m asking. Much to my surprise, she doesn’t laugh.

“It’s called a clutch because its purpose is to clutch the car’s wheels and the engine shaft together. So when the clutch is engaged, the wheels and engine are moving together. When the clutch is released, that makes it so I can shift, which changes the speed of the engine shaft’s movement, and allows us to go faster once the clutch re-engages and connects the wheels to the engine again.”

I’m nodding, not because I understand any of the words she’s saying, but because I’ve never heard her talk about mechanics like this and it’s like she’s speaking her mother tongue. Coming from her, it sounds like a song I couldn’t sing if I tried, but goddamn if listening to it hasn’t suddenly become one of my favorite things. 

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to know any of this to be able to drive,” she says. “I just know it cause I designed it.”

“Well that’s, you know, really cool. That you did that.”

_Good one, Korra._ _Real eloquent._

“It is cool,” Asami smiles, looking at me sideways. Her tone and expression are playful, and I can’t help but laugh, both at myself and in relief that she’s not fed up with me yet. 

I guide her route to the dumpling stand where I order a dozen to share, plus a few kabobs. Asami tries to pay, but I step in front of her before she can. When she protests, I just hold up my hand, handing the cash to the stand worker. 

“Sorry, ma’am, your money’s no good here. Avatar money only, house rules.”

She looks at me strangely. I can’t quite place the expression, but then she nods, conceding defeat with a small smile. 

We take the dumplings down to a nearby promenade, finding a bench near the water and setting the food between us to share. The nights are growing cooler, but the city is warmer than Air Temple Island. More life here, more electricity and insulation amongst the many buildings. I face Asami with my legs crossed, picking up a dumpling in my chopsticks. 

“So what were you up to today?” I ask, taking a bite.

“Nothing interesting,” she shrugs. “Worked on a project my dad had me start.”

“What’s the project?”

She puts her fingers in front of her mouth as she finishes chewing her bite, then swallows. “A mecha-suit, actually.”

“Oh, just mecha-suits? You’re right, that isn’t interesting.” I fake a yawn, and she laughs. 

“We have a construction company working with us on them. They’re looking for new tech to protect their non-bender workers. It’s a lot more dangerous when they can’t control falling metal.”

I shake my head. “Wow, yeah. I wouldn’t have even thought of it but, of course, that makes perfect sense. That’s amazing, Asami. You’re really helping people.”

She meets my eyes and glances down quickly, idly using her chopsticks to roll a dumpling around the wooden bowl. 

“It’s no big thing, really.”

“Why do I feel like that’s your dad talking?”

She looks up. “What do you mean?” 

I shrug, trying to choose my words carefully. “I guess... he doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who appreciates you as much as you deserve to be appreciated.”

“My father is one of the smartest men I know,” she says, glancing away. 

“I didn’t mean to-”

“He’s also kind of a bastard.”

That startles a laugh out of me, and she glances at me sideways again, that same playful look in her eyes. It’s heavier this time, tinged with something else, but she smiles anyway. 

“Your words, not mine,” I say, putting my hands up. 

“Seems like you had him pegged from the minute you met him at the gala.”

“What can I say? I’ve known my share of bastards. I can spot ‘em a mile away.”

She leans an arm against the back of the bench, resting her head on her hand as she looks out over the water. I think of her pained smile from a few weeks back. I think of what caused it, what bruised her so badly that she cried out after being bumped by a passing server. I have to inhale slowly, calm the swell of anger that threatens to bubble over. 

“If you ever need somewhere to go,” I say, the words coming out before I can measure them, before I can check myself, “there’s always a place for you at Air Temple Island.”

She looks at me. Her eyes are deep, her expression unreadable as she searches my face. “Thank you,” is all she says. I hear a hundred things beneath those two words, and I can only nod, hoping she can see that I understand everything she can’t say. 

“So how did you meet Mako and Bolin?” she asks, picking up another dumpling.

I lean into the change of conversation, not wanting to make her uncomfortable by lingering on heavy things. 

“Snuck into a pro-bending game, actually,” I laugh, remembering. 

“Oh, so this is a habit of yours? Sneaking into off-limits pro-bending arenas?” 

“That’s correct. It’s kind of my  _ thing _ now, you know? I have to keep the momentum going.” She laughs, and I wave my chopsticks through the air. “I actually only started bending with the boys because Mako ran off their waterbender.”

Asami crosses a finger over her lips, talking around her bite. “Why does that not surprise me?”

“He likes to keep things consistent,” I say, secretly pleased that she seems so unimpressed by Mako. “He didn’t even want me on their team, but Bolin talked him into it. And the rest is history, I guess.”

“I’m surprised Councilman Tenzin allowed that. He seems very strict.”

“He definitely wasn’t happy about it at first, but I think after a while he saw that it was actually good for me to have something to do besides Avatar training all the time.” I laugh a little. “That, and he also realized that he couldn’t keep me from sneaking out.”

“Does it ever feel stifling, having to live with your mentor like that? Even as an adult?”

“Not really. I guess I’m just used to it at this point, sharing a living space with other people. I don’t know if I would even like living alone. What about you? Do you still live with your dad?”

Asami nods. “Yeah. We’ve got our workshop on the mansion grounds, makes it easier to get to work than if I lived somewhere else. And…” She hesitates, her gaze dropping. She looks like she’s debating whether or not to say what’s on her mind. “I guess I just don’t know what I would do with myself, living on my own. The mansion can be lonely sometimes, with just me and my father living there, but at least it’s familiar, you know?”

“I get that,” I say, and I mean it. “I was excited to leave the South Pole and see more of the world, but it was still pretty scary leaving the place that I had grown up in, even when it wasn’t exactly my favorite place to be.”

“Exactly,” Asami says. 

There’s a lull in the conversation, a quietness between us. Ordinarily when I don’t know what to say to someone, I start getting antsy and uncomfortable. But I feel completely relaxed as I finish off the last dumpling. It’s an unfamiliar sensation, but it’s nice. Something about Asami just makes me feel at ease. I glance over at her and she seems lost in thought, staring out at the bay. I follow her gaze to the towering statue of Aang, looking up at his serious face. 

“What is he like?” Asami asks. 

“Who?” I ask, glancing over at her. 

She keeps her eyes on the statue as she answers. “Avatar Aang.”

The question surprises me. No one has asked me that before. I look up at Aang again, thinking back on the meditations I’ve done, mentally sifting through the mix of personalities and voices I’ve caught when I’ve gone deep enough. 

“He’s…” I have to think. Putting the connection to my past lives to words isn’t something I’ve ever done before. “He’s...warm. The other Avatars all have their things. Roku is wise, and regretful. Kuruk is friendly, Kyoshi is noble and intense. But Aang is warm. He feels like someone who would’ve been really easy to talk to if I’d known him in person.”

“Do you talk to him? Or any of them?”

“Not really. My connection to them is different than that. We don’t really...chat, you know? It’s just like having this stream of information and understanding and experience flooding in when I meditate.”

“That sounds...overwhelming.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” I laugh. “It doesn’t last, though. Once I lose focus, it all kind of slips away again.”

I’m quiet for a moment. Asami doesn’t say anything, either, both of us in our thoughts separately. 

“It’s funny,” I say, absently, the words coming on their own. “I was born knowing the people that Aang knew. Not consciously, but when I met Katara for the first time, my parents tell me that I ran straight to her, like we’d met a hundred times before. Like I loved her already. I didn’t meet Tenzin until I was older, but seeing him was weird, like deja vu, just this immediate recognition and excitement to see someone I’d never met.”

I take a deep breath, surprised at the sudden surge of feelings, of words that I haven’t said to anyone ever, all these thoughts I’ve hardly let myself even acknowledge before. “Mostly it’s okay. Mostly I love being the Avatar. But sometimes, every so often, I feel like… I don’t know, like an impostor, I guess. What right did I have to replace him? He was the last airbender. He had a world to save, and he managed to save it before he was even a teenager. But me? I was raised to be the Avatar practically from birth, and for what? There’s no one for me to save. No one even wants an Avatar anymore. The Equalist movement is growing bigger and louder by the day, and sometimes I wonder if they’re right about it all, if the world would just be better off without benders. Without an Avatar.”

There is a long silence. I’m tangled up in my head, a flurry of emotions making my chest feel tight - anger, sadness, loneliness, guilt, frustration, grief. 

I exhale slowly, trying to laugh over the sudden heaviness. “Sorry, that was a lot.”

I look over at Asami and my breath catches in my chest. She’s staring at me with tears glistening in her eyes, her brows creased with sadness. 

“Asami, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She shakes her head, looking away quickly. “You didn’t.”

“God, I’m bad at this,” I groan, pressing my fingers between my eyebrows. 

“Bad at what?”

“Making friends, apparently!” I exclaim, throwing my hands out in exasperation. “I swear I haven’t been planning to make you cry every damn time we hang out. I guess it’s just a special talent I have.”

“Korra-”

“No, I really- I’m sorry, Asami. I just wanted tonight to be really fun and easy for you and I had to go and fuck it up by word vomiting all over the place.”

“Korra, you-”

“I honestly was surprised you even wanted to come out tonight after what happened on Air Temple Island, and now I feel like I should have a disclaimer for next time. ‘Warning! An evening with Korra will likely end in tears.’ God, if there even  _ is _ a next time.”

“ _ Korra _ ,” Asami says, taking my arm. Her touch startles me out of my rampage. I look at her, feeling on the verge of tears myself. 

_ Idiot, idiot, idiot.  _

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Asami says, her words slow and deliberate, her eyes flicking back and forth between mine. “Okay?” 

She waits, her eyebrows lifting ever so slightly, and I finally give in and nod. 

“Okay.”

She relaxes a little, sighing. Her hold on my arm loosens, her fingers sliding down toward my elbow, but she doesn’t let go. “Look. I just, I have...a lot on my mind these days. And because of that, all of my emotions are very close to the surface, but that’s a me problem, alright? I’ve enjoyed every minute we’ve spent together, and I’m not about to stop being your friend just because I can’t control the waterworks.”

“You’ve really enjoyed hanging out with me?” 

She breathes out a laugh that sounds like she can’t believe it herself. “Yes, I have.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“I’m sorry, Korra,” she says, her eyes coming back to mine.

“For what?”

She hesitates, a strange expression crossing her face. For the barest of moments, she looks laid bare, like she’s begging me to understand something she can’t express. Then it’s gone, and she looks away, and laughs.

“For being such a goddamn crybaby.”

I debate chasing the fleeting vulnerability, digging deeper until I can free her from whatever is holding her captive. I decide against it, and instead heave an exaggerated sigh. 

“I mean, I  _ guess _ I can forgive you for having emotions. But it’s a three strikes and you’re out kinda deal, alright? So don’t let it happen again.”

Her eyes close as she laughs, and it almost looks like she’s in pain. Almost. 

“Sounds like a deal,” she says. 


	9. Chapter 9

It’s late. I’m straddling the practice bench, pen in hand, schematics papers scattered in front of me. I should be focused on them, making annotations to give back to my team in the morning. Instead, I’m watching Korra bend.

Her brows are furrowed and beaded with sweat, her hands locked into fists as she moves through a series of drills. This is her tenth time through it in the last ten minutes, and I have unconsciously memorized it at this point. I could predict her motions, avoid them and counter, with my eyes closed. Cross-jab, cross-cross, duck, right hook, roundhouse kick. Waterbending isn’t allowed in the gym, so she uses Bolin’s earth disks as a substitute. They make a satisfying _whump_ as they hit the net across the room and tumble to the floor. 

She finishes the set and lets her hands drop, shaking them out, breathing heavily. The sweat on her arms and shoulders glistens underneath the gym lights. Normally she’s suited up for sparring, but the boys went to bed hours ago, and she took off her gear for ease of movement. It still stuns me just how powerful her body is. She’s a well-crafted machine, a fine-tuned instrument, trained practically from birth for strength and agility. She wears it well. 

I drop my gaze quickly to the papers as she turns toward me. 

“Asami,” she says, out of breath. “You know you don’t have to stay, right?” 

I glance up at her. “You know you tell me that every night, right?”

“Yeah,” she shrugs, flashing her crooked grin as she grabs a towel from a nearby rack. “Just want to make sure you know.”

“I’d be up this late anyway, and you’re better company than an empty office.”

“High praise,” she laughs. She sits down next to me, carefully avoiding the papers as she peers at them curiously. “Whatcha working on?”

“Just reviewing some schematics. My team drew these up, I have to get the edits to them by tomorrow.”

She shakes her head in wonder. “I don’t know how you do it. This looks like a completely different language to me.”

I shrug. “It’s what I was raised on. I practically grew up in my dad’s workshop. I don’t really know anything else.”

She nods and I start shuffling the papers into a stack. No use pretending I’m working at this point. “You excited for the match next week?” 

She huffs out an exhale. “Excited, nervous, terrified, take your pick.”

“You’re going to do great. Your form has really improved.”

She cocks an eyebrow at me. “Oh yeah? You’ve been watching my form?”

I feel a blush color my cheeks and I busy myself with bouncing the papers to align the edges. “Well, I’ve just watched how Bolin and Mako bend, and it just seems like you’ve picked up on the specifics of the pro-bending form really well. It seems different than other bending I’ve seen.”

“You’re not wrong. Pro-bending is different, it’s a lot different than other bending. I’m surprised you noticed. Asami,” she says seriously. “You’re not secretly a bender, are you?”

“You caught me,” I laugh. “No, I just have sort of an eye for fighting styles, I guess.”

“Hang on,” Korra says, lifting her hands. “How do you know about fighting styles?”

“I’ve taken lessons. My dad got me into them when I was little.”

“So you’re trying to tell me that on top of being the smartest person in the city, you’re also a trained fighter?”

“My dad wanted me to be able to defend myself,” I tell her. It’s not exactly a lie. I did start fighting young, but I didn’t really learn the bulk of my training until adolescence, when I joined the Equalists. 

She shakes her head, a disbelieving laugh falling from her lips. “You really can just do it all, huh?”

“I don’t know about that-” I protest, feeling oddly flattered, but she stands suddenly. 

“Alright, come on,” she says, taking my hand and pulling me to my feet. “Let’s see some moves.”

“Korra,” I say, laughing. 

“Come on,” she says, playfully bouncing on the balls of her feet, her hands in loose fists at her face level. 

I deliberate for another half-second more, wondering if it’s wise to give away so much information about myself and my abilities. She doesn’t have to know all of it, I reason with myself. And I could stand to blow off some steam. So I pull my hair back quickly and shrug out of my jacket, remove my boots and socks, and square off against her. She looks surprised at my sudden agreement, smiling excitedly before hunching slightly into her fighting posture. 

I push up my sleeves and cock my fists. 

“No bending,” I say.

“No bending,” she promises. 

If I had gloves or hand wraps, I’d go for strikes, but I’m not in the mood to sprain my wrist or bloody my knuckles, so I lean back instead, leveling a high kick toward her head. It’s slowed significantly - she’s not in headgear, and I’m not here to hurt her. Not like this, at least. She dodges easily, skipping back a few paces. I know it’s bait, but I follow her anyway, curious to see what she’ll try. She feints to the left, then swings out wide with her right. It’s a softball, but I want to up the ante, see what she’s really capable of. I catch her arm, ducking past her and twisting it behind her back. I release it as soon as I’m there, showing off very plainly that I could incapacitate her in a moment, that I’m choosing not to.

She turns, looking stunned. I wink at her and she grins wickedly. She comes at me quick then, her fists flashing out. I bat them out of the way in quick succession, leaning back to miss the final strike. My instinct is to dart back in, to hammer a pattern of chi-blocking hits up her side, but I settle with a light elbow in the ribs before shifting away, light on my feet, hands ready. 

“Damn,” she breathes out, smiling. 

She launches into another series of attacks and I realize I’m smiling too as I duck and weave. Korra is an incredible fighter. I’m able to fend her off, but only barely. Even though I know she’s not going full force, I can still feel the power of her attacks as I deflect them, using her momentum to channel the strikes away. I haven’t had an opponent this well matched to my skill in a long time. We trade blows, dancing around each other until our breaths are coming quick and short. Her lips are parted as she pants, her teeth showing a little, a small, unconscious smile lifting the corner of her mouth. 

I plant my foot in her chest, pushing her back a few paces, then leap high, turning mid-air to lock my legs around her chest and shoulders, using my momentum to bring us both down, slamming her onto her back. She hits the ground with a grunt, the breath leaving her lungs loudly. It sounds like a laugh. I expect her to lay there a moment, winded, but as I begin to extract my legs she grabs them, dragging me toward her. She flips over and wraps her arms around my torso, her head tucked tightly into my stomach to keep me from being able to grab her in a headlock. 

I recognize the move and I shift, trying to get my legs around her before she can go too far. She twists, escaping my legs and bringing her own around the side. She uses the leverage from her knees to lunge further up my body, her arms snaking through mine. I try to pull away, wanting my arms free, but her hands lock around my wrists, holding me in place. 

_Spirits,_ she’s strong. 

I could hold my own when I was using her momentum against her, but in a test of brute strength, she’s winning effortlessly. It’s barely even a contest. 

It pisses me off. 

I twist and manage to yank one of my arms free, wrapping it around the back of her neck. She tucks her chin hard, making sure I can’t access her throat. We’re both panting, our muscles locked in opposition to each other, trembling with the strain. I kick my legs up and manage to wrap them around her waist before she can stop it and arch my back, trying to break the grip she has on my torso. She resists it, pressing down against me. 

“You can…” she gasps against my chest, “You can tap anytime.”

“Benders first,” I pant back through gritted teeth. 

She laughs breathlessly, lifting her head, and suddenly our faces are inches apart. I can feel her breath hot against my lips. Her blue eyes are wide, the laugh fading from her face as our gazes lock. I remember my dream, and wonder if she tastes the way I imagined. Then I remember her glowing eyes, the terrible, vacant look on her face, the terrifying strength as she locked her arms around me and refused to let go. 

Panic spikes in my chest and I twist my body hard, flipping her onto her back, looping my arm around her throat, locking my heels over her hips to immobilize her. She makes a sound of surprise, her hands coming up to hold my arms, but I have a death grip now, one arm wrapped around the back of her head, the other across her throat, gripping my own bicep to apply pressure to her windpipe. I shut my eyes, trying to shake the image of her Avatar state from my head, trying to remind myself that I’m in control here. I wait for her inevitable struggle, but it doesn’t come. 

Instead, I feel her fingers patting softly against my forearm. Tapping out. I let her go. She rolls away and I sag backward, my chest heaving, all of my muscles on fire as they unravel at once. I stare up at the ceiling and try to catch my breath, pretending that it’s the strain of the fight making my heart race, and not my fear. 

“Holy shit, Asami,” Korra laughs, jarring me out of my head as she collapses next to me. “You’re _really_ good.”

I swallow, half-laughing on an exhale, trying to ignore the way the Avatar’s eyes glow white-hot in the back of my mind. “What can I say? I’ve been doing this for a while.”

We lay there quietly for a long time after that, both of us catching our breath. The blood in my ears slows finally, my heart rate going back to normal. I am acutely aware of Korra’s presence beside me, the sound of her breathing, the heat of her body. 

“Well,” Korra says finally. “I’m beat. I better get back to Air Temple Island before Tenzin sends out a search party.”

She stands and holds out a hand, pulling me easily to my feet. I get dressed and gather my things and we leave the gym together. Outside, the air is cool and quiet. It sounds as though the whole city is asleep. 

The drive to the docks is quiet but not unpleasant. Korra has her arm resting on the door, her fingers lifted and extended to dance a little in the breeze. I realize with a strange shock that this has become our new normal. Nearly every moment I’m not at work or asleep I have been spending with the Avatar. Being around her feels natural, easy. Easy enough to forget that she is my target, that our friendship is a means to an end, and that the end in question is her own downfall. 

And I do forget, often. It’s a strange rhythm I’ve found myself in - when I am with Korra, I have fooling myself down to a science. It has gotten increasingly easier to forget my facade, to talk with her, to relax with her, as if we are real friends. Before all this, I thought for certain that I would have to be on my guard nonstop around her, that I would have to pour all of my energy into being charming and interesting and attentive the same way I’ve had to feign all of my other publicity-geared friendships but, much to my surprise, the opposite has become true. I forget myself, my mission, when I am with the Avatar, far more often than I would ever admit to Amon or my father.

It’s all the same to them, though. As far as they’re concerned, I am fulfilling my task with precision. And aren’t I? Wasn’t friendship with the Avatar the goal? Just because it feels easier than I thought it would doesn’t mean I am failing. As I leave her presence each day, I’m able to steel myself again, to regain whatever ground I had lost to her closeness. It’s a necessary reset. It keeps me focused. She becomes the enemy once more when we part ways, and I refuel my hatred for her with thoughts of my mother. 

But it’s difficult to ignore the nausea that settles into my stomach at Amon’s cruel satisfaction, my father’s approving nods when I give them reports on the latest from the Avatar. _I’m not doing this for you,_ I want to tell them. _My time with her doesn’t belong to you._

I should shake myself to my senses. Who does it belong to, then? To my mother? To the Equalists?

 _To the Avatar,_ the quietest voice in the back of my head whispers. _To me. To us._

I ignore the voice. This is my weakness speaking, and I will pay it no mind. I will focus on the task at hand, on the resounding victory awaiting us at the rate this is going. All the planning and preparations I’ve assisted with for the last five years are finally coming to fruition. The plan is going off without a hitch, and the Avatar does not suspect a thing. I have fed Amon my knowledge of her whereabouts, of her daily schedules and training, ensuring that he can coordinate the most targeted attacks possible, direct enough to send a message, but far enough away from the Avatar’s person that she always arrives just too late to apprehend the perpetrators. 

She is angry, and she speaks to me often of her troubles with the Equalists, of how she has had to deal with a raid on a bending district or a protest that escalated to violence, completely unaware that these were events that I helped plan. She paces, punching her knuckles into her palm as she rants about throttling Amon if she ever sees him in person. She’ll show him, she tells me. She’ll show all of the Equalists exactly who they’re messing with. In those moments, I am supremely glad for my lie. I would not want to be on the receiving end of the Avatar’s wrath. 

She does not know that every disturbance is leading to something greater. That Amon’s next move will be a bigger, more terrifying show of power than she can imagine. That a month from now, at the bending championship, Amon will take the bending of the champion team. That, if all goes to plan, the Avatar herself will be the one there on that day, kneeling on the platform in front of the whole world, being robbed of her power. 

“You okay?” Korra’s voice breaks through my thoughts, jarring me back to present.

“Yeah, of course,” I say, smiling out of reflex, glancing over at her. “Why?”

“You just look pretty deep in thought,” she says, tilting her head to rest against her fingers as she looks at me. “What’s on your mind?” 

“Oh, nothing,” I say, silently cursing myself for my lapse in attention. “Just thinking about work.”

She hums in acknowledgement, but I can tell that she doesn’t quite believe me. She doesn’t press the matter, though. That’s a trait of hers I’ve noticed - she’s not one to dig too deeply, and for that I am immensely grateful. I am a skilled liar, but day by day I feel that ability dwindling in her presence. The fewer questions she asks, the better for us both.

As we pull up to the docks, I realize that the last ferry has long since left the port. 

“I can swim,” Korra says, waving off my worry. “The ferry is just more convenient.”

Ah, yes. The benefits of being a waterbender, I suppose. There is a quiet between us before Korra speaks again. 

“Hey, um,” she falters, absently rubbing the back of her neck. “Thank you, Asami.”

I smile. “You know I don’t mind giving you a ride.”

“I mean thank you for that, too, but I meant for keeping me company. I really...I like spending time with you.”

The words sink in and I don’t look at her because suddenly my heart is pounding and I’m worried she’ll be able to tell if I meet her eyes. I stare pointedly across the bay.

“You don’t have to thank me.” My voice is quiet, like I’m afraid of myself. “I like spending time with you, too.” 

It’s a lie, I tell myself. It’s a lie to sell my relationship with the Avatar, to cement our friendship, to lure her further into my trap. But I know better anyway. 

“See you tomorrow?” she asks, looking over at me. I meet her gaze finally and her eyes are soft and hopeful. 

“See you tomorrow,” I promise. 

She steps out of the car, waving, and takes a running start toward the docks, leaping off the end. She swings her arms through the air as she comes down and a gout of water rises to meet her, enveloping her body, pulling her down into the bay. Then she’s gone, and it’s just me and the night left behind. 

* * *

I am nervous. Why am _I_ nervous? I am a part of a dangerous political group that seeks to overturn life as the natural world knows it, but it’s a pro-bending game that’s giving me anxiety. I would be embarrassed if I wasn’t so goddamned _nervous_. I’m sitting in the best seat in the house, a specially reserved box view. My hands are in my lap, but they won’t stay still, my fingers twisting and twining over each other as the bridges extend over the water and the teams approach the platform from their changing rooms.

Seeing the stadium like this is a much different experience than when I was here a few weeks ago. It’s an impressive structure when it’s half-lit and empty. When it’s like this, packed to the rafters with a cheering crowd, with the overhead lights in full force, their beams swinging across the vast space, it’s a different experience entirely. The air is electric, charged with anticipation for the upcoming fights. I wonder if the energy is like this all the time, or if it’s particularly potent since this is the first of the championship playoffs. 

The voice of the announcer booms over the sound of the roaring crowd. 

“Ladieeees and gentlemeeeen! Welcome! To the first playoff match of the tenth annual Pro-Bending Chaaaaaaampionship!”

The noise of the crowd grows even louder, which I didn’t think was possible.

“Tonight, facing off, we have - from over the waves, the Ember Island Eeeeeeeeeel Houuuuuunds!”

More cheers. My hands are clenched tightly. 

“And! From our very own city, just off the coast of Yue Bay - the Republic City Fiiiiiiiiire Ferrets!”

The stadium shakes as the crowd cheers and I can’t help myself - I clap too. I can see Korra with her blue sash, waving to the stands. She turns toward me and I wave. I don’t know if she sees me. I’m glad my father declined the generous invitation she extended him to attend this game. He had a meeting with Amon to be at instead, and I couldn’t be more glad that I don’t have his presence to worry about tonight. 

The bell for the first round rings out, and the match begins. There’s a flurry of movement on both sides as the players launch into a volley of attacks. I can’t keep my focus on anyone but Korra. She ducks and weaves, dodging earth disks and tongues of water and flame. Her fists are cocked in a fighter’s stance, the same one I’ve grown familiar with after so many nights watching her practice. She’s different than I’ve seen her before. At practice, she’s looser, and while I’ve seen her bending talent to some degree, it’s nothing like this. 

She’s razor focused, the lines of her body sharp, her punches hard and precise as she launches lightning-quick bolts of water at her opponents. Against all of my better judgement, I can’t help but admit that watching her bend like this is somewhat breathtaking. Watching her at practice, even sparring against her, is one thing. But seeing her on this massive stage, in front of thousands of spectators, moving like an apex predator, is something else entirely. I feel that it should terrify me, to see her prowess on full display, but it doesn’t. I feel a strange thrill pass through me instead. I ignore what that could mean. 

The opposing team’s earthbender sends an earth disk at Korra. It clips her shoulder, exploding on impact, and she stumbles back but manages to stay in her zone. She launches into the air with a spinning kick, hitting the earthbender square in the chest with a blast of water, knocking him back over the line. The buzzer sounds, then sounds again as Mako knocks the waterbender back too. The firebender is still standing in the first zone, and Korra is attacking relentlessly, hitting left, right, and center until the firebender stumbles back too and the buzzer sounds for a third time, as the dividing line between the zones lights up green. 

The crowd roars. Korra, Mako, and Bolin move forward a zone, and the elements begin to fly again. It’s a hard-fought battle. The Eel Hounds seem to be feeling the pressure and have come out swinging. Mako gets knocked back a zone, followed closely by Bolin. Korra manages to hold her ground, but only just barely, ducking and dodging shot after shot until the bell rings, signaling the end of the first round.

My anxiety climbs as the rounds progress. The Fire Ferrets took the first round for most territory gained, but the Eel Hounds come back hard in the second round, managing to score huge hits on Mako, knocking him back off the end of the platform. Korra gets knocked back a zone, and Bolin ends the round narrowly avoiding being blasted off the platform as well, cementing the win of the second round for the Eel Hounds.

I’m on the edge of my seat as the third round begins. Winner of this one takes the match. I find myself hoping desperately both that the Fire Ferrets win and that they lose. If they win, they’ll make the seed for the championship. If they lose, their shot at the title ends there. They won’t be here on the night Amon storms the arena. They won’t lose their bending. Korra won’t lose her bending in front of the whole world. 

But they don’t know what is truly at stake and they fight viciously, all of their collective skill on display as their native elements flash through the air. Blows are traded by both sides. Korra takes some heavy hits but keeps her footing in the first zone. She knocks the opponent waterbender out of the ring and the crowd roars. Then Bolin fumbles a shot and takes two earth disks to the chest, bowling him over backward. Another thirty seconds of play, and he’s knocked off the platform too. The next minute is a flurry of fists and kicks, both team’s athleticism on full display. Mako has beaten the Eel Hounds’ earthbender back to the edge, but he comes spinning back with a triple attack and suddenly Mako is flying back, plummeting over the edge of the platform. 

Korra sees it and makes quick work of the earthbender, knocking his legs out and sending him plunging into the water beneath the platform. It’s just Korra then, facing off against the Eel Hounds’ firebender. They’re ducking and dodging, but Korra is just picking up speed, her movements sharp and angry. She knocks the firebender back a zone, advances, and knocks him back again. He teeters on the edge, but puts up a good fight. His attacks are growing more frantic, more desperate, the flames roaring around Korra’s body in angry flashes. I’m begging the final buzzer to sound, suddenly hoping that Korra wins this, forgetting for a moment the consequences of that outcome. I just want this over with.

But the pressure is too great on the firebender, it seems. He slams his hands together and launches a massive stream of fire towards Korra. Headshots with anything but water are illegal in pro-bending. I know this because I have memorized the rules of the game - if I have to spend all this time around pro-bending, I reasoned to myself weeks ago, I may as well know what I’m looking at. So I know that when the flame engulfs Korra’s head, roaring for far longer than the allotted one-second shot, something has gone desperately wrong. 

The crowd roars in outrage and I am suddenly on my feet, leaning out over the railing as a scream rips from my throat so hard I can feel myself go hoarse with it. 

“ _NO!”_

Korra is knocked off her feet, hitting the platform surface in a heap as a referee’s whistle screeches out over the sound of the arena booing the foul. The buzzer sounds then. The game is called. The Fire Ferrets have won, and the Eel Hounds’ firebender will be disqualified from playing the rest of the season. But I can’t think about anything, can’t focus on anything except Korra’s body on the platform. I feel like I’m about to vomit, the breath coming short in my lungs. I am being thrown back to another time when I saw the flash of flame engulfing a body, when I watched that body collapse. 

But Korra moves then, raising up on her elbows to pull her helmet off. She’s moving slowly, gingerly, but she’s alive. She’s alive. My knuckles are aching from my grip on the railing and I blink, clearing my vision of the tears I hadn’t realized were there. She’s alive. A medic is rushing to her side, leaning over her, helping her to lie flat on her back as they inspect the damage. I’m too far away to see how badly she’s hurt, but after a few minutes the medic helps her stand and carefully walks her to the edge of the platform where the bridge has been extended back to the changing room. 

I’m turning then, rushing from the box seats, making my way blindly through the maze of halls to the other end of the stadium, to where I know the changing room is. I burst through the door to find Mako and Bolin, both soaking wet from their plunge into the pool, standing and watching as a medic carefully bends a glowing blue orb of water along Korra’s jawline. Korra’s eyes are closed, her brows crooked in pain, her mouth set in a hard line. Angry red burns mar her skin, following a rough pattern where her helmet hadn’t been pressed to her face, looking like road rash along the lines of her neck. The damage is less than I expected, but my heart is still racing, not having fully recovered from the image of her collapse. 

Mako and Bolin are both furious. 

“I’m gonna throttle that guy,” Mako seethes, pacing. “If I ever see his ugly mug around town-”

“Maybe we can get Shady Shin and the guys to track them down,” Bolin says, kneading his knuckles into his palm. 

“Guys,” Korra says, her eyes still closed. “It was just a foul, I’m fine.”

“You’re not _fine_ , Korra,” Mako snaps, and for once I agree with him. 

“Look, the healer is gonna get me patched up, and I’ll be good as new.”

Bolin grunts. “That Eel Hound guy is gonna need more than a healer to patch him up once we’re finished with him.”

“Hey, cheer up, you guys. We won, didn’t we?” Korra says, trying to smile but the expression fading into a wince as it jars a burn on her cheek

“I’ll be speaking with my father. We can make sure that firebender never sees another pro-bending game,” I hear myself say. 

All eyes are suddenly on me, Korra opening hers in surprise. 

“Asami, hey,” Korra says, braving another smile for me. I wish she wouldn’t.

I move closer, wanting to hug her, but thinking better of it. I don’t want to interfere with the healer’s work. I settle with putting my hand on her shoulder. 

“Are you okay?” I ask around the bile in my throat. 

She keeps her head still so as not to disturb the healer, but reaches up and squeezes my hand comfortingly. “I’m fine, I promise. Believe me, I’ve had way worse from White Lotus training.”

If that’s true, the White Lotus just moved much higher on my list of benders to destroy.

Korra insists on sending the boys away, telling them that they should get changed into dry clothes, that she’s in perfectly good hands now. They object at first, but finally relent, offering a parting promise to make that firebender regret ever being born. I wait with Korra as the healer does her work, the burns growing less and less angry as the minutes tick by. I envy the healing in her hands, in the water she manipulates carefully across Korra’s skin. I wish that were me, soothing Korra’s pain. I wish my hands were good for something besides blocking energy and breaking bodies.

After what feels like forever, the burns are finally gone, leaving Korra’s skin clear and unblemished as if nothing had ever happened. Korra thanks her sincerely, and the healer leaves. 

“Well,” Korra exhales with a laugh after the door closes. “That was exciting.”

“You could say that,” I say, sounding more stiff than I mean to. 

“Hey,” Korra says, standing and moving close to me. “Look at me. I’m good as new, right?”

I look at her face, at her bright blue eyes, her slightly smiling mouth. Yes, she’s good as new. She’s perfect. I reach up without meaning to and brush my knuckles along her cheek, drawing my thumb up the line of her cheekbone to her temple. She’s warm - she’s always so warm, so full of life. The image flashes behind my eyes again - the hateful burn of flame, Korra falling back, collapsing. 

“You scared me,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. 

Her expression shifts into something unreadable, but I recognize it all the same. A light blush colors her cheeks as she reaches up and presses her hand against mine, holding my palm to her face. 

“I’m sorry,” she says.

The door to the changing room opens and we startle apart, Korra turning as Mako and Bolin come back in. 

“Korra, you’re better!” Bolin exclaims, coming over and gently mashing Korra’s face between his palms. 

She laughs as she extracts herself from his grip. “See? I told you, no big deal.”

“We’re gonna grab a bite to eat,” Mako says. “You guys want to come?”

We both agree, and the atmosphere is suddenly filled with their excited banter as they relax into celebratory mode for overcoming their first hurdle on the way to the championship. I adjust with them, choosing to ignore what it means that seeing Korra hurt made me want to destroy something. Choosing to ignore that what I want to destroy is what sleeps in my bed each night. 


	10. Chapter 10

My arms are burning as I punch into thin air, the heat of flames exploding from my knuckles in bursts. The fire warms the air, moving it in gusts against my skin like a furnace being opened. I keep up the assault, throwing punch after punch, spinning in place to launch kicks before moving back to punches. Tarrlok’s stupid face leers in the back of my head, taunting me, and I yell, slamming both hands toward the ground, laying down a rippling wave of flame that billows against the stony ground and dissipates into nothingness. 

I’m spent, my lungs heaving, and I clamp my hands over my head, trying to catch my breath. I inhale in short bursts through my nose the way the White Lotus taught me, an ancient Firebending tactic to regulate heart rate. 

_Fucking Tarrlok._

“Everything alright, Korra?”

I turn to see Tenzin standing there, tall and proper in his red and yellow robes. I wave a hand. “I’m fine.”

“I take it the meeting with Tarrlok didn’t go well?”

“Well it definitely could’ve gone better.”

“What did he want?”

“He’s after me about that stupid anti-Equalist task force.”

“I thought you already turned him down.”

“I did!” I exclaim, throwing my arms out in frustration. “He just won’t let up. I don’t know what he doesn’t understand about the word ‘no.’”

I’d given him a few other words this time around, too, but Tenzin doesn’t have to know about those. 

“He’s a very… determined man.”

“That’s one way to put it,” I growl, sinking onto the stone steps nearby. Tenzin comes and sits next to me. I exhale heavily. “I just feel like it’s the wrong move. Amon is telling everyone that benders are the oppressors, and I’m trying to show that we’re not. But Tarrlok’s task force is doing the opposite. He’s proving Amon’s point!”

“Then it’s a good thing you said no.”

“He’s going ahead with it anyway, just without me being a part of it. I wish I could wash my hands of it, not actually care what he’s doing as long as I’m not involved, but I can’t. I’m worried he’s going to hurt people.”

“I think you’re doing the right thing, Korra,” Tenzin says. “I understand your concerns, but it’s out of your control at this point.”

“Then what good am I?” I snap, frustration getting the better of me. “What kind of Avatar am I if I can’t protect _everyone_? If some washed up waterbender can take a taskforce to the streets and there’s nothing I can do to stop him?”

“I know it’s frustrating,” Tenzin says gently. 

I can feel tears pricking at my eyes and it pisses me off. “Maybe he’s right about me. Maybe I am just a half-baked Avatar.”

“What?” Tenzin’s voice is sharp suddenly. “Korra, did Tarrlok say that to you?”

I shrug, not meeting his eyes. It’s answer enough, and Tenzin snorts angrily. “That man’s audacity never fails to surprise me.”

“Well, maybe he’s right. I still can’t airbend, and forget being able to reach the Avatar state.”

“That doesn’t make you half-baked. That makes you on-par with many other Avatars.”

“Not with Aang. He had this stuff down before he was even a teenager.”

“Aang’s experience was hardly orthodox. Did you know that Kyoshi didn’t even know she was the Avatar until she was seventeen?”

I sniff, shouldering a tear from the corner of my eye as I glance over at him. “No, I didn’t know that.”

He nods. “It’s true. No one suspected she could possibly be the Avatar because she struggled to even earthbend, and that was her native element. And even after realizing her Avatarhood, it took her years to master any of the elements without the help of her war fans.”

“I’ve never read that anywhere.”

“That’s because it’s not documented. Aang only knew that because Kyoshi herself told him.” I rest my chin on my arms, staring out across the water, and Tenzin continues. “All Avatars have had their struggles, Korra. If anything, you’re proving that you have the makings of an incredible Avatar, just by virtue of not being immediately perfect at everything you try.”

It helps, a little. Kyoshi was one of the greatest Avatars of all time, and she was even further behind the curve than I am. Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe I can salvage this mess even without knowing how to airbend. 

“Thanks, Tenzin,” I say quietly. 

“You’re doing well, Korra. Just give it time.”

I’m about to head inside to change and shower for dinner when a White Lotus guard comes running up to us, out of breath. 

“Avatar, Master Tenzin! We just overheard on the police scanner - there’s an Equalist raid happening downtown.”

I’m on my feet. “Where?”

“The Red Maple borough.”

I take off running toward the edge of the island, calling to Tenzin over my shoulder. “Catch up when you can, I’ll meet you there!”

“I will!”

I’m grateful that he doesn’t try to stop me. He must know that I need this, a chance to prove that there’s still some things I can do right. I leap off the edge of the island, bending the water up to catch me, and then I’m rocketing toward downtown Republic City, hoping I get there in time. 

* * *

The raid is going well. I’m heading this one up - Amon must’ve sensed that I was feeling restless, itching for some real action after these weeks of spending time with the Avatar as my primary Equalist duty. We’re in the Red Maple borough, a high-class bender neighborhood known for housing some of the bigger names in the bending community. Parasites and bullies, the lot of them, also known for exploiting non-benders in their various business ventures. This is nothing but a pleasure. 

To the untrained eye, the scene probably looks like chaos, but I know better. We have a method, rehearsed ad nauseum until everyone knows it by heart. These raids are calculated, the smashing of shop windows and breaking down of doors only occurring at bender-run businesses. We don’t set fires - those spread too quickly, and could potentially harm neighboring non-bending shops. But we throw canisters of foul green smoke through the broken storefronts, and the clouds settle onto everything they touch, leaving a film of waxy residue that’s impossible to clean off. 

A few benders have put up a fight, trying to be noble. We dispatch them quickly, blacking out their chi centers and leaving them crumpled and helpless on the pavement. We take no hostages. Soon we’ll have need for captives, but not yet. Most others flee after they see what we can do. It’s a smart move, saving them a difficult recovery process as their bending slowly returns. 

I kick open the door of an untouched storefront, launching a canister inside. Some Equalists like to trash the shops, overturning tables and destroying merchandise, but I don’t bother. I take no joy in ruining a person’s livelihood, but we’re here to send a message, so I do. The canisters and their smoke do all the work for me.

Another bender lunges at me, a woman of middle age with bright green eyes. She comes at me with an earth bending attack, lifting a heavy piece of earth right beneath my feet. She almost topples me, but I catch my balance, twisting past her next attack. I feel my teeth gritting. If these people would just stay _away_ , if they would just let us do this, we wouldn’t have to hurt them. Shops can be rebuilt, they shouldn’t be risking life and limb for a piece of property. I lunge in, and she’s not quick enough. My knuckles meet her body, striking her chi with force.

She collapses, her eyes wide with fear and shock. There’s a sound of earth being bent behind me, and I lunge out of the way, dodging a large stone as it flies past and impacts the ground, shattering into dust. I turn quickly, ready to return the attack, but then I see the perpetrator and my body locks up. I feel like I’ve been shot, ice spreading through my chest. 

It’s a little boy, no older than maybe six or seven years old. He’s shaking like a leaf, his hand in a fist and another rock floating in the air, trembling just as badly as he is. Behind him is a little girl who looks younger, probably four or five, her green eyes wide in her round face as she peers up at me in fear. The boy stomps his foot and bends the rock at me. I dodge it unconsciously. 

“Leave us alone!” he shouts, his voice quaking.

“Mama!” the little girl screams, darting out from behind the boy, going to the woman. Her small, pudgy hands grip the woman’s clothes, shaking her. “Mama, get up!”

She looks up at me, tears rolling down her cheeks, her tiny shoulders shaking with sobs. I feel like the ground is unsteady beneath my feet. I’m suddenly the child, utterly petrified, staring up at the person who wants to hurt me, who has hurt me, who has destroyed the people I love for no reason I can comprehend. I’m the child, watching the bad man tear my world apart. 

But, no. No, I’m not the child. 

I’m the bad man. I’m the monster. I’m the destroyer.

There’s another tectonic shift, bigger, much bigger than anything the little boy could have produced. I feel it coming, and I let it. Whatever happens next, I deserve. The ground explodes upward beneath my soles, launching me into the air. All of my instincts clamor for me to react, to use the momentum to flip, to land on my feet. I ignore them and welcome the crushing impact as I land hard in a heap, all the air knocked from my lungs. I look up to see the Avatar there, moving forward with righteous fury in her eyes. But she doesn’t come at me like I expect her to.

She turns, moving toward the woman. I get to my feet unsteadily, clutching a throbbing pain in my side. I watch as Korra slings one of the woman’s arms over her shoulders and helps her to stand. The little girl and boy cling to the woman’s legs, partially hiding behind her and Korra, looking up at me. I can’t meet their eyes. My stomach is in knots. I am danger, I am fear, and Korra is safety. That much is clear. That much is true. 

Korra’s face goes from caring concern to hard anger as she looks at me, and I feel myself recoil from the expression alone. 

“Enough,” she barks at me, then directs her gaze around the street to the other Equalists who have gathered at her arrival. They’re looking between me and her, waiting for my next signal, their bodies hunched and ready for a fight. They look like so many wolves, circling the deer-elk with a broken leg and her babies gathered around her, afraid and ready to die. I know I must look the same. I am one of them, after all. I am the wolf. 

There’s the sound of a roaring engine and a truck comes careening around the corner. It screeches to a halt, the back doors bursting open, and a team of blue-uniformed benders leap out, Councilman Tarrlok at their head. Korra’s eyes go wide at the sight of him, then the anger in her face deepens. 

“Tarrlok, stop!” she bellows. 

Tarrlok ignores her, directing one of the benders to help the earthbender woman and her children out of harm’s way. I feel myself relax a little as they move away, relieved that they won’t become collateral damage here today. Then the team of benders attacks, but they’re not coming at us, the Equalists who stand ready for a fight. They’re darting into shops and homes nearby, dragging non-benders out from where they’ve been cowering inside, locking their hands in earth clamps, holding bolts of fire to their necks. 

Rage sparks in my chest. Cowards. Tarrlok looks self-satisfied. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Blow for blow - we attack bending civilians, he attacks non-bending civilians. He knows the Equalists are well equipped for an assault, trained to defeat benders in close combat, but these civilians are innocent, completely helpless. I’m a millisecond away from signaling to my forces to attack when Korra leaps into action.

She brings her foot down hard to the ground, her hands tightening into fists, and the ground shifts beneath Tarrlok’s feet. A chunk of earth rears up, hitting the backs of his legs, and he collapses to his knees as the ground closes over his lower legs. He’s trapped, kneeling before the Avatar, and she stands over him. 

“Let them go, Tarrlok. _Now._ ”

He looks shocked and furious. 

“What do you think you’re doing, Avatar?”

“I’m not going to let you prey on these innocent people.”

“Innocent?” Tarrlok snaps. “They are accomplices to the Equalist movement. I’m merely evening the playing field.”

Korra’s response is to whip her hand forward. I think she’s about to strike the Councilman, but instead a clamp of earth closes around his throat. It seems that the time for negotiation has passed.

“Release those civilians!” she shouts to the rest of the benders. 

They pause, looking shocked. I share the sentiment. The Avatar is threatening the life of another bender, of a very high-profile bender at that, to save these low-level non-benders. I shouldn’t be surprised. The Korra I have come to know would protect anyone who needed it, but it’s such a sharp contrast to all the lies I have been told about the Avatar, I still find myself stunned. 

“I won’t ask again,” Korra snarls. Her hand tightens, and Tarrlok chokes. 

Tarrlok’s team complies then, releasing the non-benders, who stumble away, terrified. Korra steps back from Tarrlok, then reaches down and raises a massive wall of earth from the road, creating a barrier between us and the bender forces. She turns to us, her shoulders still tense, hands raised in fists. I think at first that she’s about to attack us herself, but then I realize that she’s keeping the barrier up against any potential efforts from the earth benders on the other side to bring it down. 

“Get out of here,” she snaps, her voice strained. 

I feel all eyes on me, my forces waiting for my signal. I know mercy when I see it, and I flick my hand, silently echoing the Avatar’s command. _Scatter._

They do, leaping into the shadows, vanishing. I hesitate for the barest of moments, my eyes on Korra. She looks at me and I know she can’t recognize me, but my heart seizes anyway. I shrink back, letting the darkness shroud me as I make my escape. 

I move through the shadows and alleys of the city, skirting across rooftops, making my way back to the hideout. My body is a nest of confusion and pain and fury. I need to clear my head before I get back or Amon will sense my doubt. I pause on a rooftop, taking refuge in the shadow of a chimney. I struggle to breathe properly, pressing my forehead against the brick, trying to grind some physical sensation into my consciousness. I want to punch it, break my fucking bones against something unyeilding, but it would be stupid, too difficult to explain away without raising suspicion. 

I think of the little girl kneeling over her mother. I think of her cries. I think of the fear in her eyes, the terror as she stared up at me. Me. The villain of this story, my mask the source of her nightmares for years to come.

My stomach turns and I rip my mask off, lean over, and vomit. My stomach contracts over and over, bile burning my throat, until I am left empty. I stagger away, falling to my knees, gasping for breath. Tears stream from my eyes. I stuff my mask between my teeth, covering my mouth with my hands, and I scream. The sound reverberates down through my chest, muffled in the fabric of my mask, and I feel my throat go raw. I scream until my lungs are emptied, until my insides are on fire. 

The mask falls and I let it, catching myself on my hands, clenching my teeth against the sobs that well up, shaking their way through my chest and shoulders so hard I think I might shatter with their force. 

What have I done? What have I become? I have been so angry for so long, and it has ruined me. I think of my father, of his cruelty, the anger in his hands, how I have longed for who he was before my mother died. Hypocrite. I have become just as cruel, just as calloused, ready to hurt and ruin and destroy whole generations for what I lost. I am in a hall of mirrors, the cruelty of the benders who killed my mother reflected in me and my father, in Amon, and through us into the children whose lives we will ruin, and through them on and on into eternity, endless reverberations of hatred. 

I feel dizzy, unbalanced. I hear footsteps, echoing from far away, and I look up and see my mother. A sound jars from my mouth, mix between a sob and a moan. It isn’t real, I tell myself, but my heart strains anyway, trying to leave my chest and go to her. She kneels in front of me, and her expression is kind and sad. There is love in her eyes, love I do not deserve. She takes my face gently in her hands.

“Mom,” I say. My voice is as broken as my heart. I have so much to say to her, so much to ask, so much that has been lost, but I’m staring into her eyes and wishing this would last forever and I can’t say any of it. “Mom.”

“Asami,” she says, and her voice is exactly as I remembered it, gentle and sweet and soft. I feel something break inside me. “My daughter. It isn’t too late.”

She leans in and kisses my forehead. She’s saying goodbye and I am helpless to stop her. Her hands leave my cheeks and I blink and she’s gone. I cry then. I cry like I haven’t cried since she died. Something has split open inside my chest and it’s a floodgate, an allowing of the pain that I have been denying myself for so long, that I have been twisting into anger before it could consume me. But it consumes me now and I collapse onto the rooftop, curling up into a ball, holding myself closely, holding the little girl who lost so much, who suffered until she didn’t know anything else, until she became someone else entirely. 

We weep, the two of us together, alone. I don’t know for how long, but when the tears finally run out, I feel as though a lifetime has passed. And maybe it has, the time running backward to the moment my mother died, and forward again to where I have taken myself on this race to escape my own pain. I sit up, wiping my cheeks slowly. My head throbs. I stand carefully, pulling on my mask again, and I start back on my way to the hideout. 

I feel as though I have been shattered, fracturing along the thousand lines and scars left on my soul the day my mother died. But the pieces of me are reforming, taking shape into something new, something unfamiliar. I don’t recognize her, this new self, but I think my mother would have, and that’s enough for me.

I cannot be forgiven for all I have done, I know this. The pain I have caused is insurmountable and I cannot hope to undo it, but I can at least make amends, attempt an atonement. In Amon’s hands, I have become a weapon, honed by my own pain, wielded to inflict that same pain on others. No longer. I will turn the knife inward. I will cut at the body that has shaped me. And maybe I will fall in the process. If that’s the case, so be it. If I become collateral damage, maybe the universe will consider it a debt repaid. 

My body thrums with a strange calmness as I stand before Amon, delivering my report of the raid. He doesn’t question my decision to leave when the Avatar arrived. Equalists are strong fighters, but without the element of surprise, the Avatar could easily overwhelm our forces, especially with the backing of other benders. I don’t mention that the Avatar set those non-benders free. It will not change his mind, and may only plant suspicion about the depth of my loyalty to the cause. I need every advantage I can get if I’m going to destroy him. 

“Very well,” he says at last. “Good work. Get some rest and be ready for tomorrow.”

My heart jolts at the reminder, but I nod and take my leave. Tomorrow. The kidnapping of the Triple Threat Triad leadership, and the night after that, Amon’s first display of his ability to take a person’s bending. I am glad that our targets are so unequivocally evil. Even the Avatar would have a hard time making a case for those men to maintain their bending. I’ll have no problem bringing them to justice. 

And once I finish with assisting in that morally ambiguous task, what then? I am determined to bring down the movement, but I am one person. Close to Amon, yes, deep in the heart of Equalist operations, but how much can I do? 

It doesn’t matter. I’ll do whatever I can, anything I can on my own. A thrill of fear goes down my spine as I wonder what my father would do to me if he finds out I have abandoned the cause. I scoff at myself. I am nothing if not consistent, a coward to the end. I put my father out of my mind for now. I will drown in the enormity of the task before me if I dwell on it, or on him, for too long. 

I go home, driving slowly from the hideout, taking the long way. The sun has set, and a light snow has begun to fall. My headlights drag across the driveway as I pull in, illuminating a figure sitting on the stone wall in front of the main gates. My heart clenches. It’s Korra. 

I put the car into park, reminding myself that she didn’t know it was me there today, and that I should know nothing about what happened. I step out. 

“Korra? What are you doing here?”

She hops down from the wall and strides toward me wordlessly. Her expression is stiff but I can’t place the emotion there before she walks straight into my chest, wrapping her arms around me tightly, burying her face in my jacket. It surprises me, but I curl my arms around her shoulders after a moment, closing my eyes, wondering how much of her present state is my fault. 

“Korra?” I ask again quietly. “Are you okay?”

“Today sucked,” she says, her voice muffled. 

I press my cheek to her hair, ashamed to be taking almost as much comfort from the hug as I’m sure she is. 

_Yeah, it did,_ I want to say. “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask instead. 

She shakes her head, her face still buried in my chest. 

“Okay,” I murmur, reaching up to hold the back of her head carefully. “That’s okay.”

I want to tell her everything suddenly. I want her to know the lies I have told, both to myself and to her. I know it will make her hate me. I know it will ruin our friendship. I know it will render me useless and disposable to Amon and my father. I know it will put my life in danger. I don’t care. I’m tired of who I have become. I’m tired of the mask I’ve worn for so long. I want her to know the truth. 

But before the words can leave my mouth, before I can tell her anything, she pulls back a little and looks up at me. Her eyes are pained, her brows furrowed. It seems like she wants to say something, but as we look at each other, the moment to speak passes and something else comes and fills the space between us. My heart begins to pound and I am suddenly aware of the strength of her arms around my back, the closeness of her body. There are snowflakes in her hair. 

She leans in and kisses me. 

A wave of shock rolls through my body, but then, almost without being aware of it, I’m leaning into her, tilting my head into the kiss, a sigh leaving me. Her lips are even softer than I imagined, and she tastes familiar, like this was meant for us all along. What a cruel trick the universe has played. But I don’t dwell, I can’t, because our lips are parting and I don’t want her to go, I don’t want it to end, I don’t want to be pulled back to reality, so I tilt my head and kiss her again, deeper this time, my tongue meeting hers. She makes a small sound that lights a fire in me, her hand coming up to cup my cheek, and my fingers tighten a little on the back of her head, pulling her closer. 

Then I remember what I have done. I remember who I am, the cruelty I had planned for her, the hatred I have poured into our relationship, and it burns in contrast to this, to the gentle movement of her lips, to the way she holds me close. I jar away, breaking the kiss with a quiet gasp. She lets me go immediately. 

“Asami, I- I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s-” I stumble over the words, touching my forehead as I take a step back, floundering for a lie that will save her. “It’s not-”

“I’m so stupid,” she says, her voice low, a pained laugh dropping from her lips. 

“You’re not, Korra.”

“It’s okay,” she says, looking at me. Of course, she’s the one trying to save me. Again. “I’m sorry. Can we forget I did that?”

 _No_ , something begs deep inside me. 

But I am a coward, and I always will be, and all I do is nod. 

“I’m gonna go, okay?” she says, and I find myself on the verge of tears. I want her to stay, forever. But instead I clench my fist and dig my nails into my palm until it stings. 

“Okay,” I say. I can’t meet her eyes, and I don’t watch as she disappears into the dark.

* * *

I brush tears angrily from my eyes as I approach the docks, trying to keep the hitching in my chest to a minimum. I’m panting, having run most of the way from Asami’s house, using the physical exertion to try to keep from feeling or thinking. But I can’t help it. I can’t help it. I can still feel her lips on my mouth, smell her perfume, feel the warmth where her body had been pressed to mine, even despite the thickening snow-fall. 

But then she’d pulled away. She pulled away because she doesn’t _want me_ and of course she fucking doesn’t. I’m such an idiot. We had a really good thing going. She’s one of the few human friends I’ve ever had in my life, and the only person I’ve ever really been able to spend time with without us getting sick of each other after a while. And so of course I had to read too much into my feelings and ruin _everything_. I could scream, but I won’t.

Instead I leap off the docks and dive into the water. I don’t bother to bend it around me, letting the shock of the cold rob me of my breath. It takes me out of my head for a blessed few seconds as I start toward the island, my lungs seizing a little. I just hold my breath for as long as I can, the rumble of water loud in my ears as I waterbend myself forward. 

I wasn’t even planning on kissing her when I went to her house. When her butler said she wasn’t home, I should have just left, but today had been so hard and awful, and I feel like the world is about to crumble around me for threatening Tarrlok like that, and I just wanted to see her. I just wanted to say hi and maybe talk about something aside from everything that went wrong today. But when she finally showed up, I couldn’t find the words. She looked so tall and beautiful and worried when she saw me, I couldn’t do anything but hug her. And then. 

My stomach flips at the memory. 

I looked up at her and it was like everything came flooding in, all of the conversations we’d had, all the time we spent together, everything we’d learned about each other, and today had just been so hard and it was such a relief to see her and be close to her, be close to someone who didn’t think that every move I made was the wrong one, someone who cared about me. So I kissed her. 

And it was a mistake, it was a horrible mistake, but for a second it wasn’t. For a second, it was perfect. For a second, I forgot about everything else. For a second, she kissed me back. 

But then she was pulling away like I’d burnt her and she’d looked so horrified. Because it was a mistake. Kissing her was a mistake, thinking that she felt the same way about me was a mistake, it was all just a big mistake, and now she won’t want to be my friend, or spend time together, or get dumplings from the food cart around the corner from the stadium, and I already feel lonely without her. 

I do scream then, expelling all of the breath left in my lungs into the water in huge, boiling bubbles, the sound of my voice drowned in the bay. I rocket upward, breaking the surface, taking a huge breath in and swallowing some water in the process. I cough and clear my lungs and sob a little because I can’t help it. Everything is bad, and Asami won’t want to see me again, and I’ll be lonelier than I was when I first came to Republic City because at least before then I didn’t know what it was like to have a friend like her. 

I float on my back for a while, the sound of my own breathing muffled as the water laps into my ears. It’s snowing still, and I use a firebender breathing technique to keep my teeth from chattering. My breath fogs in the air, curling away slowly, and I watch it go. 

Maybe I can fix it somehow. You can still be friends with someone you’ve kissed, right? My heart aches and I close my eyes. The way things have been going for me lately, I’m not going to get my hopes up. 


	11. Chapter 11

The growl of the motorbike reverberates through my hands, my legs, my chest. I’m following the truck closely, a few other fellow Equalists flanking me on their bikes. The route is familiar - we’ve rehearsed it many times on our map, and again individually, just to be sure we all know how to get in and get out without any mess-ups. We wind down the streets of the city, taking back alleys and less-used roads wherever possible. It’s late enough that not many people are out and about anymore, but we’re not taking any risks. This is Triple Threat territory, and any slip-ups could end up costing lives. 

When we’re a few blocks out, three of us on bikes split off, veering down an alley adjacent to the Triple Threat headquarters. We park and kill the engines. My internal timer has already begun as I dismount, signaling to the others silently - two minutes. I slip down an alleyway, hearing the soft padding of their footsteps as they follow, and scale a short wall, leaping from the top to grip the ledge of a second-story window and haul myself from there to the rooftop. The other two move like shadows, up and over the wall and back down again to flank the guards standing watch at the headquarters doors. 

They’re mountain-sized men, dressed in black dusters, mean expressions chiseled across their features like they’re frozen that way. We’ll make quick work of them. 

I perch on the edge of the roof, the timer in my head ticking down. 

Fifteen seconds. 

I flex my hands, bracing. 

Five seconds. Four, three, two…

There’s a bang behind the headquarters building, and the guards jump, startled, looking around quickly. They don’t have even half a second to react before the other two Equalists leap from the shadows, their fists moving like lightning flashes as they pummel the guards in quick, precise strikes, debilitating them in an instant. They collapse and I leap from the roof, landing in a roll, and then I’m through the front doors. 

Inside, it’s chaos. Flame and water are flying like it’s a solstice celebration and this is the grand finale of the light show. Dark Equalist bodies dart around like shadows, dodging attacks, fists flying at light speed. This will be over in moments. I dodge a bolt of ice and lunge forward at the man who threw it, some skeevy-looking guy in a blue suit. My knuckles find his chi points and he squeals like a wolf-bat as he collapses, his legs giving out. I whip out a bola, slinging it around his hands, and tie a kerchief around his mouth to keep him quiet. Two Equalists grab him from me, hauling him out the back door in a flash. 

I turn, scanning for anyone remaining, and hear a familiar voice. 

“Wait, wait, I’m not with them, I’m not a Triple Threat- aah!”

The voice is familiar. My heart has already dropped out of my chest as I turn to see Bolin collapsing at the feet of another Equalist.

_ Oh, fuck.  _

What is he doing here? I know he and Mako used to be involved with the gangs, but I thought they’d given that up ages ago. 

It doesn’t matter. His hands are being tied, his mouth gagged, and the Equalist who took him down is looking over at me, giving me a sharp gesture to help. I move without thinking, taking one of Bolin’s arms, hauling him off through the back door. 

_ Shit. Shit, shit, shit.  _

I was ready for the Triple Threats. It would be easy enough to maintain my Equalist beliefs in the face of ruining the lives of such cruel men. But Bolin. Not Bolin. 

I feel sick to my stomach as I help lift him into the back of the truck. He’s shoved roughly to sit on one of the side benches. He looks scared, his chest heaving with panic through the gag in his mouth. I turn away, darting down the alley to get my motorbike. I start it up, the engine roaring through the quiet dark, and peel down the alley to get back to the truck. It’s barely been a day since I decided to right all the wrongs I’ve inflicted, and already the universe is testing that promise. It feels like things couldn’t get worse. 

I pull out behind the truck as it starts up, the other motorbikes roaring to life. Then everything gets worse. 

The back door to the Triple Threat headquarters slams open. I whip my head around to see Korra run into the alley, followed closely by Mako. 

_ You have to be fucking kidding me.  _

“Bolin!” Mako yells. 

I hear the truck take off, the rear doors slamming shut. The rest of the motorbikes peel out, but I take another moment, pulling out a canister, popping the spoon, and launching it toward Korra. A plume of green smoke sprays out, billowing and spreading across the alley. I’m begging her silently. 

_ Don’t follow us. Please, don’t follow us.  _

The cloud hides them from view, and I turn, wheels screeching as I take off after the truck. My heart is pounding. I’m praying that the smoke gives us enough of a screen to shake them off. I know that neither of them own a vehicle, and Korra doesn’t know how to drive yet anyway - she doesn’t know, because I haven’t taught her. We’ll be long gone before they have a chance to catch up. And then what? Then we drag Bolin onto stage to lose his bending in front of a crowd of people who hate him.

I glance over my shoulder and feel my heart drop for the fifth time in as many minutes. Korra and Mako are hard on our heels, galloping after us on the back of a massive animal, a white beast straight out of the southern tundra. This must be Naga.

Mako leans out to the side, blasting a jet of flame our way. It misses me, but another Equalist has to dodge sharply to avoid being hit. Then another blast, impacting the ground just in front of my bike. I can feel the heat of it, and it makes me angry, but I don’t have a chance to dwell as I hear the sound of rupturing earth. Beneath my wheels, the ground goes jagged, the cobblestones fracturing and boiling as Korra earthbends. I manage to keep my bike steady, and as the street suddenly erupts into a high rut, I shift the handlebars, launching the bike off the makeshift ramp. I land, somehow managing to keep steady. 

They chase us into a wide, empty square. I know what I have to do. Get them off our tail, make sure the hostages aren’t set free. Not even Bolin. 

Another Equalist has the same idea as me and as the truck pulls away from us, they whip around suddenly, a bola flying from their hand. It wraps around Naga’s paws, throwing her into a forward tumble, flinging Mako and Korra high into the air. They hit the ground, sliding to a stop. I turn the bike hard, barely slowing it, and dismount, letting it skid away across the pavement as I sprint toward where Korra is just gaining her feet. 

Don’t think, I tell myself. Just don’t think. 

But the thought crosses my mind anyway:  _ this is going to hurt.  _

I leap through the air, landing in front of her, arms poised, waiting for her move. It’s strange to look at her now, to remember that the last time I saw her, she kissed me. It makes my chest ache, and I bury the feeling. Now is not the time. I know it’s her, but she doesn’t know it’s me, and she’s a dangerous fighter. Even without my training, I know her movements intimately at this point, and I know by the look on her face that she’s about to firebend. 

She does, throwing a jet, red hot and roaring, from her fist. I leap into a flying spin, letting it strike the ground beneath me. I close the distance between us in the span of a breath and knock one of her hands aside, ducking as she levels another blast at my head. The heat billows around my face, but my adrenaline is going too hard to feel afraid. She strikes again and again, the snarl of flame splitting the air as she punches and kicks at me. I dodge, moving quickly, letting my body do the work, letting my mind take the backseat as I face off against the Avatar. 

She kicks again, fire erupting from her heel, and I lean back, my own leg coming up, locking around hers, bringing it back down. Then I’m lunging in, my knuckles making contact at her hip, up across her ribs and along her arm. A sound of pain and surprise leaves her and she pulls back, holding her now-limp right arm. 

_ I’m sorry _ , a voice says quietly in the back of my mind. 

But Korra doesn’t pause, launching into another attack with her left arm, dropping to swipe a tongue of fire towards my feet with her right leg. I’m dancing through the flames again, ducking and dodging her furious attacks, the heat making sweat slide down my arms and back. She lands a hit out of nowhere, a slicing flame from a downward kick. Our uniforms are fireproof, but the heat still makes the skin on my back ache and I feel a plume of fear erupt in my chest. It puts my teeth on edge. 

_ Enough.  _

I duck past her, getting behind her before she can react, and my fists are dancing up the side of her body, pummeling her chi points with dead accuracy. She cries out, stumbling, and I kick her legs out from under her, sending her crashing to the ground in a heap. The other Equalist lands a kick in Mako’s chest and he falls beside her, limp, his chi blacked out too. 

My chest is heaving as I stand over Korra. She looks up at me, her blue eyes wide. She’s completely helpless, and I am racking my mind for how to keep the other Equalist from doing something rash. But then my problem is solved for me because suddenly there’s a monstrous roar, and Naga is lunging toward us, her teeth bared, ready to rip us apart. 

We stagger back, away from her snapping jaws. I can fend off benders with the best of them, but I don’t know if my skills are as well matched against teeth and claws. I take the interruption as a clear invitation to exit the premises and throw another canister of smoke, lunging away as I hear it explode behind me. My motorbike lays on the pavement not far off, its engine still roaring. I right it and climb on and peel out of the square, the other Equalist just behind me. 

I don’t look back. 

* * *

My mind has been racing since we got back to the hideout. We caught up to the truck easily enough - the encounter with Korra was no longer than a few minutes at most - and I helped with pulling the prisoners from the back, taking one of Bolin’s arms to guide him, blindfolded, to the holding cell where he’ll wait with the others until the event tomorrow night. He doesn’t know it’s me, of course, and I would never tell him, but I hope it gives him some small comfort that I’m not handling him roughly, that I have no malice for him. 

Who am I kidding? Just because I’ve had a change of heart doesn’t make me better than any of the other Equalists. I’ve still helped Amon get as far as he has. I’ve hurt people, and I’ll be responsible for hurting far more before I can undo everything I’ve done wrong. But I’m determined to make this right, to save Bolin from getting his bending taken. I’ve landed on an idea that I think might just work. I have to pray that it does. 

After the prisoners are locked away, I request entry to Amon’s office, and wait patiently with sweating palms and racing heart until the Lieutenant opens the door for me. I step inside and Amon turns to face me.

“Asami. Are you ready for the Revelation?”

“Yes, Amon,” I say, impressing myself with the steadiness of my own voice. “They won’t know what hit them.”

“Indeed,” he growls. “You asked to see me?”

“Yes. We have a small problem.”

“And what’s that?”

“On the raid today, we picked up a bender who doesn’t belong to the Triad. I know him. His name is Bolin, and he’s on the Avatar’s pro-bending team.”

“And why is that a problem?”

I swallow, steady myself. “As a key player in the Championship, the Avatar’s team might not win if he isn’t able to play. If he loses his bending.”

“I see,” Amon says. “You want me to spare him.”

It sounds like a challenge, and I suddenly feel as though I’m standing on very thin ice. 

“I only wanted to inform you of the situation. Whether you spare him or not is no concern of mine.” 

The callousness of my words burn on my tongue, and I hate myself for how easily they come. I hate myself for how quickly I abandon my campaign to save Bolin. I am nothing if not a coward. 

Amon turns away. “I will take his bending along with the rest of them. If he’s in league with the Triad, the sooner he loses his bending, the better. I’m sure the Avatar will find a way to make do with a replacement. She strikes me as the determined type.”

My heart falls through the floor. “Of course, Amon.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You can see yourself out.”

I do, walking stiffly past the Lieutenant, feeling sick to my stomach. I make my way to the bathroom and close the door behind me, locking it. I pull my mask off and grip the sink, trying to steady my breathing. 

I should have let Korra stop us. I should’ve taken out that other Equalist. It would’ve been easy enough to ambush him while his attention was on Mako and Korra, snap his neck, hide his body. Korra would’ve made quick work of me and had enough time to catch up to the truck. It was stupid to think I’d have enough sway with Amon to save Bolin, and now my one chance at that has been shot. 

I grit my teeth. 

It’s not over. I can’t give up. I owe it to Bolin. I owe it to my mother. 

It’s time to pull some strings. 

I gather what I need quickly and quietly, then change out of my uniform and leave the hideout. I swap my trademark Future Industries jacket for a long black duster I have stowed in my trunk, and leave my car parked on the street. Both would be too conspicuous; no one needs to know where I’m going, or who I am. I make my way on foot to a bar, buried in the depths of a back alley. There’s no illumination anywhere, no signage or advertisements to betray any signs of life, but I know exactly where I’m headed. A dingy set of steps leads me down into the entryway that holds a single door, painted black. 

A bouncer leans against the wall, arms crossed. He lifts his head at the sound of my footsteps, but as soon as he recognizes my face, he straightens, pulling the door open for me with a grunt and a nod. I return the nod as I step inside. Being the daughter of one of the wealthiest and least ethical men in Republic City has its advantages. 

Inside, the bar is dark and dingy. It’s late, but that’s just fine for my purposes. The crowd I’m looking for only comes out at night. I slide into a seat at the bar, sinking a little deeper into my collar as I wait for the bartender. She comes over after a moment.

“What can I get you?”

“Black dragon, stirred.”

Her eyebrows lift almost imperceptibly, but she gives her response without missing a beat. “With or without olives?”

“Two olives.”

Her eyes flicker across my face before she turns, prepping the drink. As she brings it to me, she leans across the counter. I lean in, making it look like I’m just shifting forward in my seat. 

“Back booth, far right. Give her ten minutes.”

I lean back again and pick up the toothpick from where it rests in the glass, pulling one of the olives off with my teeth. There’s no clock on the wall, and I don’t wear a watch, but I don’t need either. The timer is going in my head. I sip on the bitter drink, something with vodka and octopus-squid ink, as I wait. A few people come and go. I don’t make eye contact with any of them. Everyone here knows to leave each other well enough alone. Everyone knows that if you see a familiar face here, you forget it right away. We’re all shadows. 

When ten minutes is up, I finish the drink and the olive, and slide the empty glass away with a hundred yuan note under it as thanks to the bartender. Then I make my way to the back booth, far right. It’s smartly positioned, tucked away from the other tables by a good fifteen feet on each side. Two hulking men stand adjacent to the booth walls, additional insurance against any listening ears. I ignore them and they ignore me as I slide in across from the shadowy figure.

“Miss Sato,” a voice croons, low and velvety, loud enough only for my ears. “What a pleasant surprise.”

The woman leans forward, the yellow light from the booth lamp illuminating her sharp face, her grey eyes, her sly mouth. Her dark hair is neatly coiffed in tight curls, and her collar is casually unbuttoned, giving her an air of deliberate dishevelment.

“Silver,” I greet her plainly by her street name, and she tuts. 

“Come now, Asami. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

It’s a good joke. Whatever else we’ve been, we were never friends. 

I smile thinly. “I need a message delivered.”

She sighs. “All business. Fine. To who?”

“The Avatar.”

That stops her in her tracks. She raises her eyebrows, a delighted smile pulling her lips back across her teeth. 

“Is that right?”

“I thought this was a no-questions-asked deal.”

“Oh, it is. But you can’t expect a girl not to be curious. I’d heard that you’d been seen around town with her, but sending messages from the shadows? What games are you playing with the poor thing?” 

I feel my hackles raise at the question, my hands curling into fists under the table, but I keep my composure where it matters. “Can you deliver it?”

“Why come to me?” she asks, more serious now. She leans forward, searching me with her glittering, calculating eyes. “If you already know her, why are you here?”

“Those sound like questions to me.”

My deflection only serves to pique her curiosity further, and she smiles again, searching my face, reading me like an open book despite my best efforts to keep my face neutral. 

“Asami,” she says after a pause, sounding a little disapproving, a little scandalized. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve got feelings for this girl _. _ ”

My heart clenches, my breath coming up short between my teeth. I hadn’t let myself think it, hadn’t faced the truth of what it meant that I felt transfixed by Korra every time I was in her presence, that I had kissed her back. I hate that someone else came to this conclusion before I did, but I can’t worry about that right now. I need to get this situation back under my control. 

I lean forward slowly, closing the distance between us until I’m close enough to smell her perfume. Until she’s close enough to smell mine, and all the memories I know it holds for her. I let a small smile crawl across my face, looking at her from beneath my lashes. “Yuehai,” I say, letting her name curl off my tongue. “Are you stalling?”

Her expression shifts, and she’s unguarded for a split second, disarmed by my proximity and my use of her first name. Her eyes dart to my mouth, and I prey on her weakness, licking my lips ever so slightly, knowing how they must look in this light. I see her swallow. She doesn’t answer me, but I don’t need her to. 

“It needs to be anonymous,” I murmur, pulling the folded bundle of paper from my pocket and sliding it across the table. “And it needs to find her before sunset tomorrow. Can you do it?”

She looks back up to me and there’s an ache behind her eyes. A stab of remorse hits me, just for a moment. Then the ache disappears as her expression steels. “My rate is double for deliveries under twenty-four hours.”

I don’t bat an eye. “I know.”

She leans back and takes the bundle from me, then snaps her fingers. A shadowy figure materializes from the other side of the bar and approaches the table. The two exchange a few words, spoken so low and quiet I don’t catch what’s being said. Then the figure is gone, taking the papers along with them. 

Yuehai looks over at me and I pull the money from my jacket pocket, folded in a neat little packet, and hand it to her. She takes it, flipping through the bills to ensure it’s all accounted for. It’s an unnecessary gesture, and we both know it, but I choose not to comment. When she’s satisfied, she hands the money over her shoulder to one of the guards, who tucks it away in his jacket. I slide from the booth, not wanting to overstay my welcome now that our business is concluded. She catches my hand as I stand and I pause, looking down at her. 

She meets my eyes, her face strangely devoid of any coyness. “Take care of yourself,” she says.

I raise her hand to my lips and leave a kiss on her knuckles. She lets me go and I leave, exiting the bar and blending back into the cold darkness outside. 


	12. Chapter 12

We’re assembled beneath the stage. I can hear the muffled voices of the crowd in the warehouse overhead. I’m standing still and ready in my place behind Amon, feeling sick to my stomach. A cold sweat makes my skin feel clammy beneath the uniform. I am particularly grateful for my mask in this moment - I don’t have to school my expression, try to pretend that I am anything but a nervous wreck. 

I hear the voice of the announcer above us. 

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome - your hero, your savior, Amon!”

The crowd erupts into cheers and our platform begins to rise. The warehouse comes into view and I am staggered by the sheer size of the crowd that has gathered. The entire place is filled all the way to the back. I knew we had a sizable following in the city, but I didn’t know it was anything like this. If I had seen this a few days ago, I would have been elated. Now, I feel nothing but a sinking feeling of dread. 

Amon begins his speech, and I find myself searching the faces in the crowd, desperate for any sign of Korra. I realize, entirely too late, how foolish my plan was. Even if Yuehai’s man was able to find the Avatar as promised, was able to deliver the packet of folded Equalist pamphlets, which would serve as Korra’s ticket to The Revelation, and the small note I scrawled indicating the time and place, what would happen next? Would Korra storm in here alone, try to take on Amon and all of the assembled Equalists herself? She’s bold and brave enough that I wouldn’t put it past her to try. Have I endangered her by trying to save Bolin? Will I have to watch her lose her bending tonight too?

Everything is backwards. I don’t know how to do this right. Being good, doing the right thing, is not as simple as it always sounds. 

But then I see her. She’s in disguise, wearing a hat and scarf to hide her distinctive Water Tribe hairstyle, but those big blue eyes are unmistakable. Mako stands beside her. They both stare up at the stage, listening as Amon reveals his gambit. I wish they wouldn’t wait. If they knew what was coming, they would know that there’s no time to lose. 

“That is why the spirits have chosen me,” Amon is saying. “To usher in a new era of balance. They have granted me a power that will make equality a reality, the power to take a person’s bending away. Permanently.”

The crowd gasps at the proclamation, and Korra’s eyes go wide. 

_ Please _ , I want to tell her.  _ Do something. You don’t want to see what comes next.  _

“Now, for a demonstration,” Amon says. “Please welcome Lightning Bolt Zolt, leader of the Triple Threat Triad, and one of the most notorious criminals in Republic City.”

The crowd begins to boo as the members of the Triple Threat Triad are led onto the stage, Bolin bringing up the rear of the procession. I have to force myself not to look at him, to keep my face forward. Korra spots him too, and I see her lips form the words  _ “There’s Bolin.” _

She starts toward the stage and my heart leaps into my throat. It takes all of my willpower not to scream at her, to tell her to run. But much to my relief, Mako stops her before she can leave his side, probably talking her down from doing anything rash. I find myself, for the first time, thanking the powers that be for Mako’s presence. 

The Lieutenant is untying Zolt now, and Amon announces that he will let the man fight to keep his bending. Zolt is full of confidence and swagger.

“You’re gonna regret doing that, pal,” he says. 

I know better. 

Zolt launches a series of firebending attacks at Amon. Amon dodges them deftly, dashing across the stage as casually as if he were jogging through nothing more than a light breeze. Lightning crackles from Zolt’s fingers next, but Amon has reached him now. It’s over. Amon moves quickly, pushing Zolt’s arm away and twisting him around in a single fluid movement. 

The lightning lances across the walls, bouncing off the pipes in the ceiling, a grand finale, the swan song of the firebender’s powers. Amon’s thumb presses to the man’s forehead, and I’m close enough that I can hear him gasp. The lightning continues for another moment, then fizzles and is replaced by a massive gout of flame. Then that dies too, and Zolt is staggering forward and collapsing to the stage like a dead man. 

His bending is gone. I can see it in his eyes, and it’s proven a moment later when he swings limply at Amon from the ground and nothing happens. Not even the smallest spark leaps from his fist. The crowd gasps. 

Korra’s face is pale, her expression empty with shock. I understand her reaction - I felt the same way the first time I saw the proof of Amon’s powers - but I am desperate for her to do something, do  _ anything _ . Time is running out for Bolin, faster than she knows. The Lieutenant unties the next victim, the bender in the blue suit I took down last night, and I watch Korra disappear into the crowd. I pray she has a plan. 

The blue suit puts up a fight, but he goes down just as quickly as Zolt and is hauled away. The third gangster is brought up and I feel nauseous. The only one left now is Bolin. The third gangster fights and falls, and someone reaches down to untie Bolin’s bonds. 

Then something across the room explodes. 

I nearly jump out of my skin, my gaze snapping to the source of the sound. There’s a massive cloud of steam filling the room. The crowd is screaming, scattering. 

My heart leaps. Korra. She must have done this. Clever, creating a screen for escape. But Bolin isn’t in the clear yet. He’s still tied up, surrounded on every side by Equalists. I slip toward him, waiting until the steam is so thick on the stage I can barely see a foot in front of me. Then I reach down and quickly begin working at the knot on the ropes around his arms. It comes loose, but before I can help him to his feet, someone barrels into me from the side, knocking the air from my lungs, bowling us both across the stage in a tangle. 

I roll free, leaping to my feet, and barely dodge a flash of flame as Mako strikes at me again. All the gratitude I felt for him before evaporates. The bastard. I’m trying to  _ help _ . 

I don’t have time for this. He strikes again and I leap, kicking his arm away, and dart past him, back toward Bolin. The steam is heavy and thick, making it hard to see anything. Dark bodies flit by, the shrieks of the fleeing crowd ringing through the warehouse. Bolin isn’t where I left him, but I can barely tell if  _ I’m _ even where I left him. I look around quickly, trying to find his familiar green-clad bulk, trying to listen for his voice. 

Then I hear him. 

“Wait, I think there’s been a big misunderstanding. Please!”

No. Oh no. 

I move toward his voice and then I find him. I find him kneeling in the billowing fog, Amon standing over him, thumb pressed to his forehead. Bolin’s eyes are wide. His body shakes. 

Amon steps back and disappears without fanfare into the steam. 

Bolin sways and falls, collapsing at my feet. 

_ Oh, god. Oh no, oh god.  _

I was too late. Amon has taken his bending. It’s my fault. 

“Get away from him!” a familiar voice cries. 

Korra lunges out of the fog, and I instinctively dodge out of the way of the flame she throws at my head. But as she turns for another strike, it’s as if time slows. I can see Bolin in a heap on the ground behind her, and I can clearly remember the taste of Korra’s lips on mine. There is rage in her eyes, her teeth are bared, and as she strikes at me again, I stand still. The flame hits my shoulder with a roar, making me stagger sideways. I don’t retaliate, and she doesn’t bother with bending as she swings into a roundhouse kick. Her foot meets the side of my head with punishing force, and my vision blacks out before I even hit the ground. 

When I come to, the steam has dissipated enough that I can see Mako and Korra leaving through the back door, carrying a limp Bolin between them. My heart cracks, and I welcome the bruising pain in my head. 

_ What have I done? _


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your patience on this chapter. it's been slow going with feeling inspired to write lately, and I just appreciate so much everyone who has patiently waited or left comments saying how excited you are to see what's next. I hope this lives up to your expectations!

“It’s gonna be okay, Bo. You’re gonna be okay,” I can hear Mako saying behind me. 

I glance over my shoulder again as Naga pounds down the alley. A few Equalists tried to come after us on foot, but I think we’ve lost them. I look at Bolin, who is halfway slumped over, Mako’s arms around his chest the only thing keeping him from falling completely out of the saddle. His eyes are dark, darker than I’ve ever seen them, and for once in his life he isn’t trying to crack a joke. He doesn’t even attempt to respond to Mako’s repeated reassurances that everything is going to be okay. I don’t either. I don’t think any of us believe him at this point, not even Mako. 

I face forward again, tightening my grip on the reins, trying to breathe through the lance in my chest. I was too slow. I should have reacted sooner, should have thought of the plan to release the steam before Zolt had even lost his bending. I had every advantage, even the information about the time and place for the whole event falling miraculously into my lap earlier this morning, but it still didn’t matter. Bolin doesn’t have his bending anymore, and it’s my fault. 

I don’t know where to go. Away was the only plan, just getting away from our pursuers, away from Amon, away from the warehouse where Bolin just lost everything. I find myself guiding Naga toward the docks and Air Temple Island. Toward home.

Yes, home. Tenzin will know what to do. He’s the Avatar’s son. The real Avatar, the kind that saves people, that saves the whole world, not some half-baked wannabe who can’t even save one person from having their bending taken away. 

We reach the docks and I don’t bother waiting for a ferry. I guide Naga right into the water, bending a bubble around all four of us to keep us dry and breathing. When we get to the island, I ride her up to the temple entrance, then leap off and help ease Bolin down. He’s unsteady on his feet, and leans heavily on my shoulder for support. I shout for Tenzin, ignoring the fact of how late it is. This feels urgent somehow. As if addressing the problem sooner will make it more likely that we can undo what Amon has done. 

Tenzin comes jogging out of the temple, looking worried. “Korra? What’s going on? Is everything alright?”

“It’s Bolin. He was kidnapped by the Equalists and Amon took his bending.”

“Took his bending?" Tenzin shakes his head. "That’s impossible. Only the Avatar has ever possessed that ability.”

“I don’t know how he did it, but he did. Please, we have to help him.”

To my relief, Tenzin doesn’t try to ask more questions. He reaches out, helping to support Bolin’s weight. “Let’s get him to the infirmary. I’ll have one of the acolytes call a healer.”

The healer arrives after what feels like years. Mako goes into the infirmary to sit with Bolin while the healer works. Tenzin and I wait outside. I can’t stop pacing, my body buzzing with anxious energy. Tenzin asks me to tell him what happened, what I saw, what I heard, anything that might help us figure out how Amon is doing this. Amon’s speech has been echoing in my head since we left the warehouse, and I give Tenzin all the details I can remember. Tenzin’s brow furrows when I get to the part about how Amon claimed that the spirits gave him this ability. 

“I find that highly unlikely,” he huffs. “Spirits are not known for getting involved in human affairs except in extreme circumstances of spiritual disturbance.”

I remember Amon’s words, ringing clearly through my head like an echo chamber.  _ I spoke to the spirits, and they told me that the Avatar has failed humanity. _

“Maybe having an Avatar that can’t master all the elements is enough of a reason,” I say. The words taste bitter, but the possible truth in them is undeniable. 

“Korra,” Tenzin says sharply. “That is nonsense.”

“Is it?” I snap, sounding angrier than I mean to. “Amon said the spirits told him that the Avatar had failed humanity, and that’s why he has this power. Because  _ I  _ have failed.”

“You cannot put stock in the kinds of things a man like Amon will say. He’ll do anything to try to get people on his side.”

“But the proof is right here!” I exclaim, feeling tears burning in my eyes as I gesture toward the infirmary door. “Look at what he did to Bolin. He has the power to take people’s bending. How else would he be able to do that if not because of the spirits? And why else would the spirits allow this to happen if not because I’m a failure?”

“Korra, it has nothing to do with you.”

“You don’t know that,” I say. I feel so drained suddenly. “And right now, it’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

The door to the infirmary opens before Tenzin can answer, abruptly ending our conversation. The healer closes the door gently before she turns to us.

“This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen," she says, her voice hushed. "I’ve worked with patients who had their chi blocked, which temporarily disables bending. But his chi centers are clear, and I can’t find any other issues with his energy. My best recommendation is that he get plenty of rest, and hope that his bending will return naturally.”

My stomach drops through the floor. “You mean you can’t do anything to help him?”

“I’m sorry, Avatar. This is beyond my reach.”

Tenzin thanks the healer and escorts her out. My head is ringing. I feel nauseous. I know there are other things we can try, other healers we can talk to, but a sinking feeling in my chest tells me that it’s not going to matter. Bolin’s bending is gone. It’s gone because I am a failure of an Avatar. This is all my fault. 

The infirmary door opens again and I look up, hastily brushing my tears away. Mako stands there, his expression pale and grim. 

“Bolin wants to see you,” he says, his voice devoid of color. 

I nod wordlessly, and follow him inside. 

Bolin sits on the edge of one of the beds, his shoulders heavy as he stares at the floor. He looks up at me as I come in. He tries to smile, but it barely moves his mouth, and doesn’t even come close to reaching his eyes. 

“Hey, Korra,” he says. 

“Bolin,” I say, taking his hand as I stand next to him. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve been faster. We’re going to do whatever it takes to fix this.”

He nods, patting the back of my hand with his. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault but Amon’s.”

“No-” I start, but Bolin squeezes my hand, looking up at me with sorrowful eyes. 

“Korra, my bending is gone. Nothing can change that. But I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything,” I say past my tears. 

“Promise me that you’ll win the Championship.”

“Bo, that’s not important anymore,” Mako interjects, sounding angry even at the suggestion that something like pro-bending should be mentioned after a tragedy like this. I can’t help but agree with him. 

But Bolin insists. “Yes it is, Mako. This Amon guy thinks he can just do whatever he wants, that he can throw everyone’s life out of whack just cause he had a bad run-in with some benders once. But we can’t let him. We have to show him we’re unstoppable. You guys have to win the Championship.” There are tears in Bolin’s eyes as he looks between me and Mako. “You have to.”

I nod, not waiting for Mako to agree. “We will, Bo. I promise.”

I insist on Bolin and Mako spending the night on the island. I know it won’t make a difference to Bolin’s bending, but it makes me feel a little better to keep them close at least for tonight. This way, if anyone tries kidnapping my friends again, I’ll be here to kill them myself. 

I feel wired, antsy, but my body is exhausted. We didn’t get any sleep last night as we searched the city for Bolin, and after all the adrenaline of the last few hours, I feel myself crashing. I make my way to my room and get into bed, staring up at the ceiling, expecting my mind to keep me up for hours. But it doesn’t, and when I fall asleep, I dream. 

I’m at the gala. There’s a hundred people here, all milling around, seeking me out, shaking my hand, talking excitedly to me. I try to smile, but I feel restless, worried about something, something I can’t quite remember. Something important. I push through the crowd, through the hands that grab at my arms and shoulders. Then I see her. Across the room. 

Asami. 

She is standing beside her father, facing away from me. 

I try to call her name, try to move forward, but my words dry up in my throat and only a faint wheeze leaves me. My feet feel as though they’re stuck in quicksand. I can’t get to her, but she turns anyway. Her face is dark in her father’s shadow, but I can see the bruise on her cheek, the trickle of blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. 

“Where were you?” she asks me, her voice hollow. “Why didn’t you save me?”

I want to answer, I want to scream, but there are a hundred hands on me, dragging me backward, into darkness. I try to fight, but my bending doesn’t come. I’m powerless. 

Then the hands are gone, and I find myself in the crowd at the warehouse, staring up at the stage where Amon looms. His voice is booming, echoing, proclaiming the power bestowed upon him by the spirits. He turns and looks at me and I feel as though I’ve been stabbed, a terrible pain ripping through my chest. Then I’m standing on the stage, and Bolin kneels before me. My thumb is on his forehead. He shakes, then falls. 

“Your bending is now gone,” I say to him, Amon’s voice coming from my mouth. “Forever.”

Bolin’s body vanishes in a cloud of smoke and I’m running, running, running. I can’t breathe, I can’t see, but I have to get away. I have to. My vision clears and I come to a stop in a vast field. I see a crowd of people, and they turn toward me as I approach. I recognize the man at their head by his blue arrow tattoos and his chinstrap beard. Behind him stands an old man with red robes and long white hair and beard. At his side, a tall woman, her face painted red and white. 

“Aang!” I call out, and my voice is my own again. I stop in front of him. “Aang, you have to help me. Amon, he has this terrible power, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to stop him.”

Aang says nothing, only staring at me with blank gray eyes. Then he steps aside, and behind him stands Amon. Amon, with a thousand Avatar lives at his back as though he belongs among them. I recoil, stumbling back. I want to flee, but I’m moving as though in slow motion. Then Kyoshi and Roku are on either side of me, holding my arms, forcing me to my knees. 

Amon steps forward, Aang at his shoulder. 

“Please, Aang!” I scream. “Please, help me!”

I struggle and as I look up, I realize that Kyoshi and Roku are both wearing Equalist masks, their yellow eyes glowing as they stare down at me. The other avatars move forward, surrounding me, all of them in Equalist masks now too. My vision blurs with the shine of their yellow eyes. 

There’s a hand on my chin, lifting my face. It’s Aang. He gazes down at me. 

“I was gone for a hundred years, and still the spirits waited for me,” he says. “You are beyond saving.”

Then he steps back, and Amon reaches out. 

He presses his thumb to my forehead. 

I bolt upright with a scream, gasping for breath. My forehead burns, and I press my palm there, trying to make it stop. My heart is pounding out of my chest. It hurts to breathe. Naga lifts her head from the floor, nudging at me gently with a whine. I wrap my arms around her head and bury my face in the thick fur of her neck, trying to keep the panic from growing. 

“It was just a dream,” I say. “It was just a dream.”

But I can’t shake Aang’s words from my mind, not even after the sun has risen and chased the shadows away.

* * *

The morning after The Revelation, I wake feeling dizzy and a little nauseous. I ignore it. I took a heavy blow to the head last night from one of the strongest fighters I know, a little physical fallout is to be expected. I make my way slowly to the bathroom, disrobe, and step into the shower. The hot water will wake me up as it always does, steam out the bruises, and I’ll feel better once I finish. 

That’s as far as my thought process gets before I black out. 

When I come to, I’m in my bed. A healer hovers over me. The room sways unsteadily. I can see a broad figure in the doorway. My father. I stir weakly. My limbs feel like lead. The healer is saying something to me, I think. 

“...hundred and four fever...much needed rest...call if it gets worse...”

Then the healer leaves. My father remains in the doorway. I struggle to stay conscious, feeling vulnerable under his gaze. But then he leaves, too, and the blackness surges back over me, dragging me down into unconsciousness. 

I drift across a vast sea with nothing but a plank of wood to keep me afloat. The water is icy, but the sun burns down overhead, making me sweat and shiver in equal measure. Sometimes the weather is calm, and I drift, my head lolling, trying to rest as I am lifted on gentle swells. Sometimes a storm breaks over me, and I fight against the waves, trying desperately not to drown.

Korra is there with me. She sits atop a stone wall, her arms resting on her knees. She stares out to the horizon, her expression steady, her blue eyes troubled. I want to ask her to kiss me again.  _ I’ll do it right this time _ , I try to say.  _ I promise.  _ She doesn’t hear me. I settle against my wood plank, looking up at her face. I could look at her face forever, she’s so beautiful. She’s so steady. I feel tears on my cheeks and I’m embarrassed. I’m such a mess, but I can’t help it. 

I’m so sorry, I tell her. I’m so, so sorry. 

She doesn’t hear me. Her stone wall sinks, and she sinks with it, vanishing under the black water. Before I can stop her, I feel a presence, looming and terrible over me. I look up and it’s Amon. He’s grown to the size of a giant, his mask taking up the whole sky. He reaches down and his hand closes over my chest. I feel my ribs crack and I try to scream, but no sound comes out. He lifts me up, up, up, higher than the sun. The whole world stretches out below us and my stomach leaps in terror. 

“Look,” he says, sweeping his arm out. 

I look, and I see Republic City below us. Then I see bodies, hundreds of them, thousands, piled in the streets. But they’re not dead. Their eyes are open, flickering in panic. Benders, freshly robbed of their bending, all of them. There are so many. I see Bolin and Mako. I see Tenzin. I see Jinora, her young, kind face locked with fear, her brown eyes dark and empty. 

Amon lets me go. I’m falling, falling, falling. A black hole opens and swallows me in the sea. I’m floating and it’s so cold, I’m burning alive. Burning, floating, like a wisp of ash on the wind. A flame blossoms in the dark, a bright white flash of heat, and it’s my mother holding the flame. She floats, ash on the wind. 

“I didn’t die, Asami,” she says. “You did.”

The flame erupts and my mother is gone. My father is there instead, howling in a nest of fire, his voice splitting my skull. Another eruption and my father is gone, and now it’s me in the flames, wild eyes and screaming, my voice ripping from her throat, the sounds of agony a memory, an echo. My head is going to burst with the sound. 

Then I’m gone, and so is the flame, and it’s just water and silence now, dark and encompassing. I see something move, something blue. I swim toward it and find Korra, her eyes closed, a thin line of bubbles drifting from her lips. I lock my arms around her body and kick upward. The water is endless, heavy, making my lungs and head ache, dragging against both of us. I fight it, kicking, kicking, kicking. We will not drown. Korra will not die, not if I can help it. 

We break the surface and I’m crawling to land, pulling her body with me. I lay her on dry ground and she opens her eyes, looks at me. 

“What do we do?” she asks me, water streaming from her lips. 

I’ll figure something out, I tell her, my words voiceless, my body empty of breath. 

I don’t know if she hears me. Her body stiffens, her back arching, her eyes and mouth flinging wide. The water is being pulled from her mouth. It turns black and I see Amon above us, his hands moving as if he’s dragging a rope. He’s killing her. I have to stop it. 

I lift her body into my arms and run. I can’t breathe and my head throbs as though a spike has been pounded through it, and I’m freezing alive, but I run. I hold Korra and run. There is grass beneath my feet and now trees on every side. They close ranks behind us, blocking us from view, keeping us safe. Amon can’t find us here. I run until I can’t anymore, until my legs give out, and then I lay still on the forest floor, my arms wrapped around Korra’s body. She holds me too, and for a moment, for a long, long breath, we’re okay.

I feel her grow less real. I tighten my grip. Don’t go. Please don’t go. But she drifts away, fading from my arms like mist under the sun. 

Then I wake up. 

The sky is dark outside. I check the clock on my wall. It’s nearly 9pm. I sit up, feeling more thirsty than I ever have in my life. There’s a full water glass and pitcher beside my bed. I take the glass and drink it down, the water sloshing over the edge to drip off my chin. I finish it, panting a little, and refill from the pitcher. I drink the second glass slower, but not by much. Water has never tasted so good. I feel like I haven’t had a drink in a hundred years. 

There’s a quiet knock and my door opens as I finish the second glass. One of our household staff, Min, pokes her head in. 

“Miss Asami, you’re awake,” she says, sounding surprised. She steps inside and I see a bowl of broth in her hands.

“What happened?” I ask her. 

“You had a fever, a pretty serious one,” she says. “You’ve been in and out of consciousness for four days. How do you feel?”

Four days. Spirits. I think of Korra, of Bolin. 

“Better,” I say. “Have any messages come for me?”

“No, ma’am.”

My heart lurches. Korra didn’t contact me. She must think I’m angry at her over the kiss. Four days. She’s been sitting with Bolin’s loss of bending on her own for four days. She must think I’m the most horrific friend. My mind is racing. How much else has happened since I was out? I feel as though the city could have burned itself down in four days. 

I stand and pull on my robe. I’m a little shaky, but only because I probably haven’t had anything more than a few mouthfuls of broth in the last 96 hours. I feel completely well, strangely so, more clear-headed than I have in years. 

“Where is my father?”

“In his study.”

I make my way to the study and barely wait for his response after knocking, letting myself in and closing the door behind me. 

“Asami,” he says, just as surprised as Min. “You’re looking better.”

“I’m feeling better. Min told me I was out for four days. What have I missed?”

He knows what I’m asking.

“It seems that word has spread on the streets about Amon’s power, and the media got ahold of the story two days ago, thanks to the Avatar.”

My heart clenches, but I keep my expression neutral. “What do you mean?”

He chuckles and the cruelty in the sound puts ice in my veins. “That little upstart took to the radio to challenge Amon to a one-on-one duel on the Avatar Aang monument.”

“A  _ duel _ ?”

“I could hardly believe it myself,” he snorts. “But yes. That’ll be happening in just a few hours, in fact. She set the meeting for tonight at 12 o’clock sharp.”

Panic spikes through my chest.

“Amon agreed to it?”

“He hasn’t responded publicly, but he intends on making an appearance.” My heart stops. My father chuckles. “He’s going to make her sweat it out, though. Told me he won’t be there for a good hour or so after midnight.”

“Is he going to take her bending?”

“Of course he is.”

“But it’s….it’s too soon. He was supposed to wait for the Championship.”

“So she opened up the chance for him sooner than planned. All the better for us, once the Avatar is taken out. Your mission will be completed, and I’m sure Amon has a promotion in store for all the work you’ve done for him. You should be proud, Asami.”

I’m floundering. I feel like I’m drowning again. I can’t keep my breathing steady. My father notices. He’d have to be blind not to. 

“Asami,” he says, his expression darkening. “What’s going on?”

I use the momentum of my fear to my advantage. “It’s too soon!” I burst out. “All the work I’ve done for Amon, and he’s going to just up and take her bending without me there? For all he knows, I’m still laid out with a fever, but he promised I’d be by his side when the time came to take her out.”

“That’s not your call to make.”

“Maybe not, but I think it’s the least I deserve.”

“Don’t be so selfish, girl,” he snaps. “We all benefit from this, whether we witness it in person or not. Amon knows the part you played in all of this. If it hadn’t been for you capturing that boy, the pro-bender, none of this would have happened.”

That catches my attention. 

“What do you mean?”

“The Avatar said it when she challenged Amon, something about Amon preying on her friends, that he should try taking on the Avatar instead.”

I nod, pretending as though the news pacifies me. “Well. I guess that’s something.”

“You should practice more gratitude, Asami. You could get yourself in trouble, wanting more than you deserve.”

“I will,” I say meekly. “Sorry, dad.”

I excuse myself then and rush upstairs to get dressed. There’s not much time left. I have to move fast if I’m going to stop Korra.


	14. Chapter 14

My heart is pounding. I have to concentrate on not letting my hands shake as I untie the small boat from its moorings on the Air Temple Island dock. I think of Bolin, of the pain in his eyes, the weakness in his body as I carried him from the warehouse. I’m doing this for him. I’m doing this for every bender who has to live in fear of Amon because the spirits decided to give up on me. Tenzin has already tried talking me out of it, but this is something I have to do. I have to. 

It’s a half-hour until midnight. I want to get to the monument early, make sure I’m ready in case Amon tries to pull anything. I’m about to step into the boat when I hear the sound of a motor across the water. I look up to see another boat speeding toward the dock. It’s a moment before I can make out the driver in the darkness, and my heart seizes - it’s Asami, her dark hair blowing in the wind, her face serious. 

I straighten, watching her as she comes, trying to keep the shock out of my expression. I didn’t think I was ever going to see her again. She’d completely fallen off the face of the earth since our kiss. No messages, no visits, nothing. I’d thought about calling, but decided against it. I wasn’t going to force my presence on her, no matter how lonely I’d been, no matter how much I’d wanted to see her, to hear her voice. No matter how much I’d wanted to tell her about Bolin, or my dreams. 

She docks the boat quickly and kills the engine, leaving a ringing silence across the water in its absence as she steps onto the dock. 

“You can’t go,” she says before I have a chance to say anything. 

I wonder for a moment how she knew, but then realize that I did make that challenge to Amon on the radio. She probably heard about that.

I fold my arms. “Why not?”

“What do you mean, why not?” she snaps. Her tone takes me by surprise. I’ve only ever seen her angry like this once before, at the Equalist rally that day in the park. “Amon is dangerous, Korra.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I shoot back. “He took Bolin’s bending, Asami. I fucking know he’s dangerous. That’s why I have to stop him.”

She flinches when I mention Bolin, dropping her gaze. “I heard about that. About Bolin. I’m so sorry, Korra.”

So she did know, and she still didn’t get in touch. I know I fucked up bad by kissing her, but it still hurts that she knew, she knew what happened, and she still stayed away. 

“You know what? It’s fine,” I tell her. “I don’t know why you decided to show up tonight anyway. You can’t change my mind.”

“I’ve been sick,” she says, looking up at me, her eyes pleading. “The last four days, I had some freak fever. It completely laid me out, I barely remember anything that happened. I would have been here sooner if I could be, I swear it.” Her jaw clenches as she looks away. “God, that sounds like a lame fucking excuse.”

“I didn’t know you were sick,” I say. It’s the truth, and it takes all the anger out of my sails. I should have checked on her. I should’ve known she was a better friend than someone who would just up and vanish without a word, kiss or not. 

“Korra,” she says, stepping toward me earnestly. “Please don’t go. I know you want to stop Amon, but this isn’t the way. He’s powerful. He’ll hurt you.”

Her closeness throws me off. I can smell her perfume. Her green eyes glitter in the lights from the temples as she searches my face. 

“I don’t care,” I tell her, a sudden rush of tears making my throat ache. “Asami, you don’t understand. It’s my fault Bolin doesn’t have his bending. I was there that night, at the Equalist rally, and I should have stopped it, I could have, and I didn’t.” I grit my teeth, trying to keep the tears from falling. “It’s my fault,” I whisper. “I have to fix it.”

Asami’s expression is pained, her brows knotted. 

“No,” she whispers. “Korra, no.”

“Asami-” I start, but I can’t get any further, because suddenly her hands are on my cheeks and she’s pulling me in and she’s kissing me. 

I don’t think. I kiss her back, reaching up to hold the backs of her arms, to wrap one arm around her waist and pull her closer. I’m scared, I’m so fucking scared. I don’t know what this means, I don’t know if after this Asami will just disappear from my life again, if I’ll ever hear from her, if she’ll regret kissing me the second it’s over, but I can’t bring myself to care. I can’t bring myself to stop it. 

I lean up on my toes, sliding my hand around the back of her neck, tilting my head to pull her in, pull her closer. She kisses me with an open mouth, with a hunger, a desperation, and it feels like she’s afraid, too. The thought brings me a little comfort, somehow. I try to memorize her, memorize the particular tang of her tongue, the way her skin smells this close, the feeling of her hair as it curtains our faces on one side. Just in case. Just in case I don’t come back. Just in case I do, and she’s not here waiting for me. 

But our time is running out, because it’s nearly midnight, and I have a meeting I can’t miss. I slowly pull away from the kiss. Asami doesn’t let me go, keeping her palms on my cheeks as she presses our foreheads together. Our breath fogs and mingles in white clouds as our hearts and lungs race together. 

“Please,” Asami whispers, her voice barely audible. 

I close my eyes, and I imagine for a moment that I accept her plea. That I don’t go. It’s a comforting thought. Maybe it will be one I can turn to if tonight goes badly, a memory that never was, where I stayed here and kissed her again and didn’t have to face Amon and his mask. 

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. 

Then I step back, and it hurts, like something breaks when I put distance between us. She lets me go. She doesn’t say anything else, but I feel her eyes on me as I step into the boat, as I waterbend my way across the bay, toward where Aang waits for me, stony and towering. I hear her boat engine start up behind me, but I don’t turn, I don’t look at her, and eventually the sound fades. 

I dock at the monument and climb out, ascending the steps quickly to the upper platform, the sound of the waves below fading as I climb. My hands are cold with adrenaline. I bounce on my feet a little once I get there, shaking my arms and legs, trying to get my blood moving, trying to prepare for the fight ahead of me. I leap into a few warm-up moves, blasting fire from my hands and feet. It feels good. I’m ready to hurt someone. I’m ready to kill the man who hurt my friend. 

The minutes pass away. I pace the platform, trying to ignore how imposing Aang’s statue feels as it towers overhead. The memory of the dream slithers down my spine, the coldness in Aang’s face as he abandoned me to Amon. 

“Come out, Amon!” I yell into the darkness. “Face me!”

The air is still and quiet, swallowing up my voice. Then there’s a shuddering, booming  _ CLANG  _ as the clock strikes twelve. I nearly leap out of my skin, my heart jumping into overdrive. The clock chimes eleven more times, the gongs shuddering through my feet and legs. I’m waiting for them to finish when there’s a flash of shadow out of the corner of my eye, a silent whir through the air, and suddenly a bola is whipping around my ankles, binding my legs together.

I fall, toppling like a fucking tree, and an Equalist, yellow eyes glowing, leaps out from behind Aang’s massive foot, bearing down on me like a demon. I roll onto my back, flinging my legs up into the air to kick myself back onto my feet. I earthbend with the movement, lifting a chain of stone erupting from the surface of the platform. The Equalist tries to leap out of the way, but they’re too slow. The stone catches one foot, sending them tumbling head over feet. As they go sprawling across the concrete, I crouch, summoning a blade of flame in my fist. The fire goes red hot as I burn through the rope around my ankles. 

The rope snaps and I’m free, not a moment too soon as the Equalist comes flying back across the platform, slinging another bola at me. I dodge out of the way, hearing it whir past and disappear into the darkness. I lift a stone from the ground with a kick, launch it at the Equalist’s head. They dodge it. 

“Where’s Amon?” I yell, spinning into a flying kick, flames erupting from the bottoms of my feet. The Equalist skirts one, taking the other full force against their side. It makes them stumble and I advance, feeling my rage pulse through my veins. “Where is he?”

No answer. Of course. I snarl and swing my arms in a wide arc, lifting water from the bay below. I throw a long bolt of liquid toward the Equalist. They duck under it, advancing on me quickly. I dance back, sweeping my leg across the ground, dragging the solid stone from beneath their feet. They stumble, but manage to stay upright. 

“Is this all he sent?” I snarl. “One fucking fighter? Is Amon that much of a coward?”

I swing into a roundhouse kick, launching a block of stone. They try to dodge, but they’re just too slow. The stone hits them broadside across the shoulder and ribs, knocking them flat onto the platform. They struggle to stand, and a pang of sympathy floods my chest. Whoever this is, they’re not very skilled. Why would Amon send this one person to fight me? Half-baked or not, I’m the Avatar, and I have a vendetta. Amon must have known this lone fighter wouldn’t stand a chance against me. 

I clench my fists and lift them in a jabbing motion, trapping the Equalist’s leg in a stone vice. I approach them slowly, trying to keep my expression steady. The Equalist struggles frantically as I approach, trying to pull their leg free. It’s no use. Their bone will break before the stone does. I stop a few paces away and lift my hands slowly, palms facing out. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I say. “I just want to know where Amon is. Why didn’t he come?”

The Equalist stares up at me, their chest rising and falling quickly as they pant for breath. It sounds like a woman. She sounds scared. 

“I promise I won’t hurt you,” I tell her. “I know he’s told you a lot of lies about me, about benders. I know there’s more I could do to help you, if you’d just give me the chance. Please. Just tell me where Amon is.”

She doesn’t answer, just looking up at me, shaking like a leaf. But then. Her head drops in defeat. She looks back up at me and beckons me closer. I approach, kneeling next to her. 

“We can work together,” I say sincerely. “Help me and I can help you.”

The yellow of her lenses glints in the faint glow from the monument lights. I wish I could see past them, to the person beneath. She nods slowly, lifts her hand to remove the mask. 

No, not to remove her mask. She grabs my arm, and I try to pull back (I’m so  _ stupid _ ) but it’s too late, and I hear the sound of the electricity moving from her glove to my body and there’s white hot, obliterating pain ripping through me, and then blackness. 

\--

I have to get a hold of myself. I don’t have much time. Korra is unconscious on the ground beside me. I have to get my leg free, I have to get us both off the monument before Amon gets here. I have to stop thinking about the kindness in her voice, the sincerity in her eyes the moment before I electrocuted her. I lean forward, clamping my hand around the stone vice on my leg. I trigger the shock mechanism, and to my immense relief, the stone shatters immediately, only giving me the slightest jolt before I turn the mechanism off again. 

I kneel beside Korra’s unconscious body, pulling off a glove to press my fingers to the pulse point beneath her jaw. A frozen moment passes, but then -  _ there.  _ A pulse, beating steady against my fingertips. She’s alive. 

I arrange her body quickly, laying her on her back, and position myself at her feet. I have never been more grateful for my Equalist training than I am now. We’ve practiced dead-man carries until everyone could do them in their sleep, just in case anything ever went wrong and we had to carry someone out of combat. I grip the fabric around her ankle, then drop into a quick roll, crossing her body, and coming out of it on my knees with Korra slung limply across my shoulders. 

I stand carefully, trying to ignore the way my legs tremble.  _ Spirits _ , she’s heavy. I wouldn’t have expected less from her sheer muscle mass, but I feel woefully underprepared to bear her full weight on my back like this. That fever completely sapped my strength. I’m frankly surprised I was able to hold my own in the fight for as long as I did. It was sheer luck that I was able to get her close enough to knock her out. Luck, and the fact that Korra is, as she has always been, a deeply kind and compassionate person. One look at a trapped Equalist, scared to death and helpless, and all the fight had gone out of her eyes. A stab of pain rips through my chest, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last as I’m reminded of how monstrous I have been to the kindest person I’ve ever known. 

There’s no time for those thoughts. Not now. I can wallow in my own self-pity as soon as Korra is out of danger. I make my way shakily down the steps, using the wall for support, and manage to get to my boat, moored on the opposite side of the monument, without collapsing. I step in, lay Korra gently in the back seat, then climb into the front and fire up the motor. 

There’s no sign of Amon or any other Equalist forces as I speed back across the bay, and I pray that I was just that lucky tonight. Maybe the universe wants to help me right my wrongs this time. I pull up to Air Temple Island, and send up another quick prayer of gratitude that it’s just as abandoned as before. I consider my next steps quickly, and make a snap decision, yanking off my Equalist mask. The night air is cool and refreshing, and I wipe the sweat from my cheeks hastily before crouching in the front seat, stripping off the rest of the uniform, and donning my standard maroon pants, boots, and red jacket. I stuff the uniform under the front seat, then step onto the dock, tying up the boat so it doesn’t drift. 

Getting Korra out is far more difficult than getting her in. My strength is spent, and the unsteadiness of the boat certainly doesn’t help in a task that requires a significant amount of leverage. I manage it in the end, dragging her bodily across the dock. Her legs drag, and I worry she’s going to lose a boot, but I make it to a soft-looking patch of dirt just beyond the docks and lay her there as gently as I can manage. 

I catch my breath then, my hands on my knees, my heart throbbing uncomfortably, the beat of it feeling strange and weak after so long sick in bed. Korra is illuminated in the moonlight, her unconscious face relaxed. I reach out without thinking and touch her cheek softly. Her arm is slung across her stomach, and my gut clenches as I notice the burn from the glove, red and angry against her skin. 

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. Another in a long list of apologies she still hasn’t heard me say. I think I’ll spend the rest of my life apologizing for everything I’ve done to hurt her. 

I straighten, and make my way up the long staircase that leads to Air Temple Island, stopping halfway and sitting. I’m close enough that I can see her body, that I’ll be able to see her shift as she wakes, but not so close that she’ll think I was the one who dropped her there. 

I wait there, in the dark, my eyes on the Avatar’s limp form in the dirt below. I think of kissing her, of fighting her, of her eyes rolling back as my glove sent a hundred volts of pure electricity through her body. Will I ever atone for all of this? Will I ever be the daughter my mother wanted?

There is no reply. There never has been. I imagine that there never will be. In the quiet, it’s just me and the bright eye of the moon. Yue, I remember suddenly. My mother told me that her name was Yue, and that before she was the moon, she was the beautiful Northern Water Tribe princess. Born weak and helpless, and given the gift of life by the moon, a gift that turned her hair a pearly white. She would have been their queen someday, my mother had told me, a great honor and privilege. But when a cruel firebending general killed the moon spirit and plunged the whole world into darkness, Yue sacrificed her own life and became the moon spirit herself. Dying for that which had given her life. 

I turn my face up toward her, bathing in her bright white glow. 

_ What was it like, _ I want to ask her,  _ to die so everyone else could live? Did it hurt? Were you afraid? _

There is no reply. 

I look back down to the sand, to where Korra lays. Her arm moves, then her head, turning slowly. I stand quickly, my heart suddenly racing. I have always been the best liar, but suddenly now I don’t know if I can be. 

I race down the steps toward her. “Korra!”

I make it to her side just as she’s sitting up, groaning, and I kneel next to her, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder. She holds her head, grimacing. I know the pain she’s in. We were required to take the shock of the gloves before using them ourselves, just so we would know. The electricity leaves you with a roaring headache and an aching body, as if you’ve been beaten all over. 

“Asami?” she asks, looking up at me through eyes narrowed in pain. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I lie. It’s not hard to sound scared. “I was waiting for you at the temple, and I saw a boat drive up. Someone got out, and they were carrying you, but I don’t know who it was. They just dropped you here and sped off.”

“Amon wasn’t there,” Korra says. She lifts her arm as if remembering, looking at the burn on her forearm. “It was just an Equalist.”

“What did they do to you?” I ask, taking her arm carefully in my hands. The question is a lie, but the horror in my voice isn’t. 

“Shocked me with one of their gloves. It knocked me out. I’m so stupid. I thought I could help…” Her voice trails off as she puts a hand to her head. 

“Come on,” I say. “Let's get you to the temple. You need a healer.”

“Asami,” she says, her voice stronger now. She looks up at me, her eyes glinting in the moonlight. I think of the kiss suddenly. “Will you stay?” she asks. 

“Yes,” I tell her, not hesitating for a moment. 

I help her to her feet and up to the temple. Tenzin is there in a moment. I doubt he was sleeping much, knowing what Korra was going to do. He bustles around in a frenzy, sending acolytes to get healing salves for the burn, asking her in a demanding tone that I recognize as fear if her bending had been taken away. I’m grateful for his panic - it means he doesn’t have a chance to ask what I’m doing here. Korra relays the story to him as the acolytes tend to her injury, and Tenzin is visibly relieved to know that Amon wasn’t even there, that he inexplicably only sent one foot soldier to do his dirty work. 

I am quiet at Korra’s side, and when her wounds are dressed and bound and Tenzin has asked his fill of questions, I find myself alone with her in her small monk’s quarters. She leaves the room without a word and returns with her arms piled with what seems like every spare blanket and pillow that exists on the entire island. I step back and she silently arranges them all on the floor, creating something of a nest large enough for two. It’s not until she’s finished that she looks at me, seeming to gather her nerves as she inhales deeply. 

“I promise I’m not trying to make a move,” she says finally, her voice quiet. “I just...I don’t want to be alone.”

I look at her for a moment, then unzip my jacket and step out of my boots, leaving me in my tank top and pants. “Neither do I,” I tell her, and climb into the nest. 

She joins me, not even bothering to get changed outside of taking off her boots too.

I have my arm beneath my head, facing her in the dark. I feel strangely calm, an untroubled sea. She watches me, her blue eyes unreadable as she searches my face. Her eyebrows are furrowed, and I want to reach up and press my thumb between them, smooth the worry there away as gently as I can. But I don’t. 

“I thought I would lose my bending tonight,” she whispers. 

“I did too,” I tell her honestly, a thrill of latent fear surging through my chest at the memory. “I was scared.”

“I wanted to,” she says. Her voice is hushed, but it feels like a shout, like a sudden uncontrollable confession. 

I feel my brows furrow. “Why?”

“Because I…” she tries, her voice breaking at the end and disappearing into the darkness. Her eyes have widened a little and she looks young suddenly. Her expression wavers as she fights some deep internal battle. “Because I’m…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t have to. I know already. I know that she wants to suffer the greatest pain she can imagine, because she carries the weight of the universe on her shoulders, because she blames herself for every misstep, for every unkindness in the world she’s meant to be protecting. 

I shift closer and pull her into my chest. She wraps her arms around me immediately, her body turning into mine. She trembles as I hold her, and I kiss her head and press my cheek to her hair. My thumb rubs patterns against the warm brown skin of her shoulder. Her ribs hitch unsteadily as she cries.

The Avatar falls asleep in my arms. Her breaths are long and slow, deep and restful. The moon shines across us both through the window. I watch her bright, white face as she watches us until she rises too high for me to see her anymore. Then I sleep too, and when I sleep, I do not dream. 


	15. Chapter 15

When I see Korra again, it’s been four days since our fight on the Avatar Monument. I haven’t seen her since that night, but I’ve given her a call every evening since, to check in, to make sure she knows that my first lapse in presence was entirely by accident, that I wouldn’t abandon her like that again. She’s been busy, she’s told me, training a new member of their team to replace Bolin. Her voice has been soothing as it’s drifted across the receiver. I should have visited her by now, but, coward that I am, I’ve been scared to. The last time I saw her we kissed, and then we fought, and I laid her low with a thousand volts to the arm. What would I say to her, if I saw her again? 

But my father has been asking me when I’ll be seeing her again, no doubt anxious to have something pleasing to tell Amon in his daily report, and I know it’s paramount to protecting Korra that I keep my facade going with the Equalists for as long as possible. And, in quiet moments where my heart aches without me realizing it, I admit that I miss her. So tonight, I drive to the pro-bending arena where I know she’ll be.

As I make my way up the stairs to the training gym, the smell of chalk and old training mats and the sound of earthen disks slapping home into nets are both familiar and alien. It feels like a lifetime has passed since I was here last. Before I even step through the doors, I can hear Korra’s voice. 

“That was good, Li-Jun, really good. You’re really getting a hang of that combo.” 

I pause at the entrance, my heart fluttering like a caged bird as I catch sight of Korra across the room. She’s in her training clothes, a tank top and loose pants with her hands and feet swathed in athletic wrap. She has her arms folded as she watches the newest member of the Fire Ferrets, a short, stocky girl with short-cropped brown hair, bend a series of discs into the net across the room. Korra nods with approval, slapping the earthbender on the shoulder as she finishes the exercise. 

Korra turns, stooping to pick up a waterskin and hand it over to the earthbender, and her eyes fall on me. She blinks and does a double-take, staring at me in shock. I hadn’t told her I was coming. I hadn’t had the nerve. 

I raise my hand in a feeble greeting, smiling a little. Korra stares at me for another moment, then recovers, turning back to the earthbender. 

“Alright, great work today. I think we’re good for the night, yeah, Mako?”

Across the room, Mako shrugs and starts putting away the exercise gear. Korra doesn’t seem to notice his surliness, and she jogs over to me, her eyes bright, surprise still lifting her eyebrows. 

“Asami, hey,” she says a little breathlessly as she comes to a stop in front of me. 

“Hey,” I say. I’m transfixed for a moment at her proximity, at the excitement in her face. I am not worthy of it, but,  _ god _ , I missed her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cut things short.”

“No, we were done anyway,” she says. She looks down for a moment, then back up at me, meeting my eyes. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” I say quietly. I clear my throat and lift my chin toward the earthbender girl across the room. “How are things coming along?”

Korra glances toward her. “Pretty good, yeah, Li-Jun is picking up on things really quickly. I think we still might have a shot at winning this thing.”

“How’s Bolin holding up?” I ask more quietly. 

Korra’s shoulders sag a little, and she looks at the ground. “He’s...he’s alright. Tenzin has been teaching him meditations, in case that might help with getting his bending back. He plays with the kids during the day, helps Pema out, just trying to keep busy, you know?”

I nod, feeling a sick tightness in my throat. “Well if he’s ever looking for work, send him my way. I’ve got lots of connections, I think I could find him something he’d be great at.”

“I will,” Korra nods. “Thanks, Asami.”

There’s a brief silence between us. Korra rubs at her arm absently, and I can tell she’s trying to find something to say. I beat her to it. 

“Do you want to go on a drive with me?”

She nods, a shy smile on her face, and twenty minutes later we’re in my car, driving down Republic City’s illuminated streets. It’s too cold outside now to have the top down, but I don’t mind. Korra is telling me about the pro-bending matches she has coming up, about which teams she’s most worried about, which ones she thinks will be easy wins. I’m listening quietly. Some of the team names are familiar to me, but most of them aren’t. I don’t mind. I just want to hear the sound of her voice forever, talking about everyday things like there’s nothing wrong in the world. Like there’s nothing that could come between us. 

I drive us away from the city, out past the furthest reaches of the tall buildings of downtown, onto a road I haven’t driven in what feels like years. It takes us away from the lights, winding up across curving mountain switchbacks, higher and higher until Republic City is a glittering map stretched out below us in the dark. I pull over at a familiar, hidden turn-off, tucked away from the main road. It overlooks the bay, and far below I can see the figure of Avatar Aang, glowing in the monument lights. 

“Wow,” Korra says quietly. “What a view.”

“I used to come up here all the time,” I say, staring out the windshield. “Just to be alone. When I needed to clear my head.”

We are quiet for a long moment. I can feel her in the dark beside me, practically glowing, radiating that same powerful, quiet presence that she has always had, the one that changed me from the moment I heard her voice. 

“I want to help,” I say suddenly. 

“Help?” she asks.

I don’t meet her eyes. “I want to help you fight the Equalists.”

“Asami, no,” she says without hesitation. “It’s dangerous.”

“I know. I don’t care. I’m a good fighter, and they can’t chi block me. I don’t have any bending for them to take.”

“You don’t have to-”

“I do,” I say suddenly, turning to look at her. She’s turned toward me, looking a little confused, a little worried, and I realize there are tears in my eyes. “I do have to, Korra. After what they’ve done-”  _ After what I’ve done  _ “-I have to. Please.”

She searches my face carefully. “Okay,” she says finally. “Yeah, okay.” A small smile touches her mouth. “We could use the help. I’ve seen you fight. Those masked motherfuckers won’t know what hit them.”

“No,” I say, leaning back, relieved. “No, they won’t.”

She watches me for a moment longer. I think that maybe we should start planning our first attack on the Equalists right away, strategizing a game plan, but it doesn’t feel right. There will be a time for it, soon, but it isn’t now. She seems to feel it too as she settles back in her seat, looking out the windshield. 

“Want to get some fresh air?” she asks, and I do. 

We step out of the car. The air is cool and bracing, and I’m grateful both for my jacket and for the suggestion to step outside. I lean back onto the hood, and Korra leans beside me. We look out over the bay together, our breath fogging like ghosts in the air. 

“How has work been?” she asks. 

Something loosens in my chest, and I almost laugh at the simple, pedestrian nature of the question. How like her, to ask a question to spur idle small talk immediately after we’ve agreed to face off against violent revolutionaries together. How like her, to steer me back to a place of comfort after we’ve waded through such dangerous territory. 

“Work is good,” I say. “It’s busy, but it’s good. I’ve been trying to revamp the engine on our new line of Satomobiles. Something more efficient, that requires less fuel.”

I lose myself telling her about the ins and outs of the new model, about my hopes for it, about the complications that come along with a mechanical revamping of this caliber. I know she doesn’t know much about engineering, so I break everything down to the smallest, most simple concepts, and build from there. It feels meditative, like some kind of ritual, unbuilding that which is most familiar to me, taking it down to its basic parts, laying it out for her to see and understand, and then to slowly, verbally put it all back together again. She listens as she always does, enraptured, nodding, asking clarifying questions sometimes, but mostly listening. A little furrow appears between her brows when something is hard to grasp, and smooths over as soon as she understands. 

The conversation comes easy. It flows, like it always does, across different subjects without missing a beat. We go from combustion physics to childhood stories, and Korra is telling me about the first time she ever bent earth. 

“Anyway, my mom was sure there was an earthquake, and so was everyone else, until the next time I threw a temper tantrum and the whole house moved.” Korra laughs, and so do I. Then she sighs. “God, my parents really went through it. Good thing the White Lotus took me away when I was still young. I probably would’ve sent them both to an early grave.”

The thought of a five-year-old Korra being ushered by strangers through the imposing gates of a military compound puts a strange pit in my chest. I wish we had been friends all those years ago. Maybe I could have kept her company. 

“I’m sure your parents are proud that their daughter is the Avatar.”

“Oh, sure,” Korra shrugs. “They love it now that I don’t cause any more natural disasters because I don’t want to take a nap.”

I chuckle lightly at that. There’s a brief quiet between us, and I glance at her face. She looks like she’s lost in a memory, her blue eyes pensive, the ghost of her last laugh still resting on her mouth. 

“What’s it like?” I ask her without meaning to. 

She glances at me. “Hm?”

“Bending,” I say. “What’s it like?”

“Oh, man,” she says, exhaling heavily. She shakes her head with a smile. “Um...I’ve never been asked that one before. Okay, well...It’s all different, each element. Water is heavy. Weighty, you know? You really have to learn how to balance it, how to move with the way it shifts. Once it gets moving, you can’t ever really control it. You just have to guide it, channel it where you want it to go. And earth-” she scuffs her heel against the ground and a small spur of rock juts from the ground. “Earth is stubborn. Earth does  _ exactly _ what you want it to do, but you have to really mean it when you bend. You can’t do things halfway, or all you’ll get is a lump of dirt that maybe rolls over before it plays dead. But once you get a hang of how to really move it, it’s pretty hard to beat. And fire.” She pauses, glancing at me. “Is it okay if I bend?”

For some reason, it is, and I nod.

She lifts her palm, fingers loosely curled. “Fire is the strangest. It’s always come the easiest to me. Fire is just pulling the heat that exists everywhere, and making it into substance. Making it real, I guess.” She stares at her empty palm for a moment, then her fingers tense, and with a small, burning  _ pop _ , a flame erupts into existence. It smokes a little as it consumes the oxygen around her palm. I can feel the heat of it, warm against my face. “When I found out I could bend fire,” Korra says, “that’s how I knew for sure I was the Avatar. Water and earth, you have to have those things around you to bend them. But fire. Fire is pure energy, pulled out of thin air. That heat is always there, and I knew that as long as I could fire bend, I would always be able to protect myself.” She closes her palm and the flame snuffs out.

My heart is pounding strangely, and not out of fear. Korra glances over at me, then up into the sky, a sudden smile blooming across her face. “It’s snowing,” she says. 

I look up too, and find that she’s right. A fine, light dusting of snow has begun to fall. Korra laughs quietly, and the sound makes my chest squeeze. I think of finding her outside my house that night, of how she looked with snowflakes in her hair. 

“Is that why you’re always so warm?” I ask her. “Because of firebending?”

“Oh,” she says, as if the thought has never occurred to her. “Yeah, I...I guess it is.”

I look over at her, and she’s still looking up at the drifting flakes. Then she glances down, and across at me. She’s close; our shoulders are practically brushing. 

“You have snowflakes on your eyelashes,” I say, and lean in and kiss her. 

A small sound leaves her throat. Her hand comes up to touch my shoulder, then the side of my neck, then my jaw. Her mouth is warm. Our lips part for a moment, and I tilt my head to kiss her again, but she turns her head away with a small gasp.

“Korra?” I ask, worried now that I’ve done something wrong. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m sorry, I…” she stammers, fumbling for words, shaking her head. 

“Hey,” I say quietly, already berating myself for doing something so stupid. “It’s okay, we don’t...have to do this.”

“No, Asami,” she says, and she sounds frustrated. She pushes away from the hood, taking a few steps away, running her hands over her hair. She shakes her head with a small laugh, looking away. “I  _ want _ to kiss you. God, I want to kiss you so much, all the time, it’s actually a little ridiculous.”

That confession steals my breath a little, and then Korra is turning to face me. She’s speaking quickly, the words pouring out like she can’t control them. 

“But I feel like...I don’t know, I feel kind of crazy about you, Asami. I think about you all the time, but the first time I kissed you, I thought I’d ruined everything, I thought you’d never want to talk to me again, and I’d never,  _ never, _ want to ruin our friendship because even though you’re so beautiful and it feels like all I ever do is think about you, if all you ever wanted was for us to be was friends I’d be okay with that. I love talking to you and spending time with you, and if it meant we never kissed again that would be fine with me. I just...you have to know how I feel about you, Asami. I’ve never felt like this about anyone. I really,  _ really _ like you, and I just need to know if I’m alone in feeling this way cause, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised, you’re like the most beautiful woman alive and I’m just  _ me _ so how could you even feel the same way-”

Her words are a runaway train and I’ve said her name three different times already and she doesn’t seem to be able to hear me, so I step forward and pull her in to me and kiss her hard. That works. Her words vanish in a brief  _ “mmph” _ and then she’s kissing me back, so enthusiastically it knocks me back a few steps. I hold her face tightly, and  _ kiss her _ , moving my tongue against hers, pulling her lower lip between mine. And when we come up for air, her eyes are closed tightly and her lips are parted and she seems like she’s trying to remember how to breathe. 

“I do feel the same way, Korra,” I tell her, and it feels like the most honest thing I’ve ever said. “Believe me.”

“You do?” she asks, her eyes opening finally. She looks at me, searching my face, looking disbelieving and hopeful and a little afraid. 

“Yes,” I tell her, and I laugh. “Yes, I do.”

“Oh, good,” she says, and kisses me again. 

We kiss there for what feels like hours, wrapped up in each other and the snow, but my jacket isn’t exactly winter material and without meaning to I start to shiver, and she insists that we get back in the car to warm up again. I feel heated and flushed as I close the door, my stomach a roil of butterflies. I take a deep breath through my nose, willing myself to have some composure. Then Korra climbs into the car and shuts the door and I’m suddenly straddling her lap, and locking my mouth with hers, and there’s a heavy, heady sound humming in her throat. 

Her hands rest on my waist, and I expect her to explore the way everyone else always has, but she doesn’t. She just holds me there, firm and warm and steady. A flash of shame lights up my chest. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve her gentleness, her sweetness, her respect. I don’t deserve to be treated so kindly. My father has always known better. The back of his knuckles have made me more familiar with who I am as a person than Korra ever could with her soft heart and her easy trust. I hate myself, suddenly, and it burns through me, and I want her to hate me too. 

I undo my jacket quickly, and lean away from her to tear it from my shoulders. She looks up at me, a little surprised. I don’t meet her eyes, and instead reach down and pull my shirt off over my head, leaving me in nothing but my bra. A short breath leaves her lips, and her gaze only touches my body for a split second before she looks up again to meet my gaze, her eyes wide. I don’t want her to look at my face. I want her to get lost in my body. I want her to use me the way I’ve always been used - just another pretty face, just another piece of meat, just another way to get your name in the paper. I want her to use me the way I’ve been using her.

But she doesn’t. She doesn’t. She says my name, softly, with so much reverence it sounds like a prayer. Then she leans up, and lifts her hands, and holds my face carefully in her palms.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yes,” I tell her. 

She doesn’t believe me for a second.

“We don’t have to do this, okay?” she says. “We can take this as slow as you need.”

I lean down and kiss her deeply, pressing my tongue into her mouth, begging her to take the bait. Begging her to prove me wrong about her, begging her to be a worse person than she is. “I want you,” I say roughly against her mouth. 

She is exactly the person I feared she would be. She pulls away from my kiss, and she holds my face and kisses my cheek, and the corner of my eye, and my forehead. I feel her reach down, and then she’s pressing my shirt into my hands. 

“Not like this,” she murmurs. “Okay?”

I pull my shirt on silently, my cheeks burning, and move to get back into my seat so I can take her home in embarrassed silence, but she catches my hand and pulls me back. In a single fluid movement that quietly boasts her raw strength, she sweeps my leg across her lap and draws me down into her arms to cradle me against her chest. There is a soft look on her face, a carefulness there that I am unfamiliar with. Tears well up in my eyes, and she pulls me close. 

“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her chest. 

I feel her shake her head and she kisses my hair. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

The untruth of that statement is overwhelming. It feels like it’s crushing my chest. But I let her hold me anyway, and when we finally drive back to the city, she keeps her hand on my leg, reminding me that she’s there. 


	16. Chapter 16

The next two weeks pass in a blur. When I’m not working, I am with Korra. Our time is split between her pro-bending matches, her pro-bending practice, and running counter-raids on Equalist attacks. Every waking moment feels as though I am balanced on a razor’s edge. I am only ever one misstep away from giving away my secrets, either to Korra or to Amon and my father. I speak almost exclusively in lies now - talking Amon into letting me out of any Equalist duties that don’t keep me at Korra’s side, explaining to Korra that I know when the Equalist attacks are happening because I have connections in the shadier circles of the city (this is only half a lie, and that soothes it a little). 

I hide my face during our attacks on the Equalists, and we strike quickly, silently, never sticking around to oust the culprits, fleeing the scene soon as we hear the wail of police sirens, leaving alleys of unconscious Equalist bodies behind. If anyone were to recognize me, it would be disastrous. Disastrous is too small a word. I don’t doubt that Amon would kill me for treachery, if my father didn’t get to me first. None of the Equalists know of each other’s identities, but if someone were to recognize the Asami Sato fighting at the Avatar’s side, it could get back to Amon quickly. I have to not think about that too often.

It soothes me to see the newspaper headlines as the days pass. 

_ AVATAR SPOTTED TAKING DOWN EQUALISTS WITH MASKED COMPANION _

_ AVATAR KORRA AND ANONYMOUS VIGILANTE SAVE MAIN STREET _

_ THE AVATAR AND HER NAMELESS ALLY, HEROES TO REPUBLIC CITY BENDERS _

If someone had recognized me, it would hit the presses within the hour, I’m sure of it. For now, I’m safe. 

It’s exhilarating fighting by Korra’s side. We have a strangely familiar rhythm together, as if we’ve been fighting back to back all our lives. She does most of the heavy lifting, her bending taking out multiple enemies at a time. I focus mainly on keeping her safe, keeping the Equalists from getting too close and blocking her chi. It’s a role that makes me feel as though I am worth something for the first time. It’s a role I could fill every day for the rest of my life. The Avatar’s protector. 

It isn’t fair to our opponents, really. Korra is the Avatar, unparalleled in fighting skill in three elements, a finely honed fighting machine, and I am filled to the brim with a lifetime’s worth of self loathing. My desire to redeem myself to Korra, to protect her til my last breath, is channeled into every single fight. Korra has brute strength, and a fierceness to match, but I am  _ angry _ . I am angry at myself, and every single Equalist that crosses my path is subject to the full force of that rage. I have never fought harder or better in my life. I feel like chain lightning, striking with punishing accuracy, my fists hitting pressure points and chi centers so hard it makes my bones rattle. Korra has to tell me to reign it in after she hears me break someone’s leg, which, I can admit after the fact, was probably a little much. 

What I don’t tell her is that I know what they have planned. I know that they would do much worse for much less to others, to innocents, and I frankly don’t mind being the one to do it first to them. Maybe this makes me no better than they are, but I already knew that about myself. Still, I curb my attacks. I don’t break any more bones, because Korra asked me not to, but I still hit their chi hard enough that I know they’ll have a headache for a week once they finally wake up. 

I would expect our nightly raids to exhaust Korra, make her less fit for her pro-bending matches. I had hoped it would. I keep praying that the Fire Ferrets get unseated in one of their playoffs, but they don’t. Korra seems lit up by the thrill of halting so many Equalist attacks, and she’s an absolute powerhouse in the arena. No team can stand against them. After every win, I have to battle between excitement for Korra’s excitement, and dread at knowing what’s coming when the Championship finally arrives. 

Korra’s excitement always seems to win out. When the stadium has cleared out and the crowds of fans have finally gone home, when it’s just the two of us alone together, Korra is a live coal. She is the thrill of victory wrapped in a hunger for more, irresistible, inevitable. We always somehow end up completely wrapped up in each other, pressed up against the wall or straddling one of the benches in the changing room or training gym. She sets me alight the way she holds me, kisses me, the way she sighs into my mouth as our tongues press together. I’ve stripped her uniform from her shoulders, and she’s pulled my shirt off over my head, but it never goes further than that. 

I want it to, and I think she does too, but it’s never felt like the right time. In those moments, where we teeter on the edge, both of us on fire and panting into each other’s mouths, Korra will always pull away and wrap her arms around my back, pressing her forehead to my collarbones, taking a huge, shuddering breath to calm herself. She whispers  _ “I’m sorry. Not yet.”  _ against my skin, and I kiss her head carefully.  _ “Don’t apologize,” _ I tell her.  _ “I know.” _

My father has been pleased with my time spent with the Avatar until he isn’t, until one night I come home and I must have the memory of Korra on my face because his expression darkens and he stops me as I try to go up the stairs. 

“Where have you been?” he demands. 

“With the Avatar,” I say shortly, and turn to go, but his fingers close hard around my arm. I was expecting it, but it still hurts. 

“What are you up to, Asami?” he snarls.

I swallow, trying to compose myself as I look back into his eyes. I feel a tremor in my chest, but I can’t tell if it’s from anger or fear. 

“I’m doing my job, dad. I’m doing exactly what Amon told me to do.”

“You watch your tone.”

I rip my arm from his grasp. It’s clear now. The tremor is anger. Furious and hot and filling my chest. 

“What do you want me to say?” I snap at him. “I’m doing everything I’ve been told to do. I am closer to the Avatar than anyone else in Republic City. She trusts me implicitly. Because of me, she’s more confident in herself than ever, and well on her way to winning the Championship. That’s the point, isn’t it? To get her there, so Amon can carry out his plan? I am performing with  _ perfection _ , and you still are angry at me. I can’t win, can I, dad?”

He strikes the same way I do, like lightning, his fist collapsing my solar plexus and retracting before I can even blink. I fold like a broken bone, dropping on the spot, breathless, my vision spotting with pain. I try to breathe, but my lungs won’t respond. A slow, high wheeze emerges from my lips as I sip slowly at the air. 

“Don’t you  _ ever _ speak to me like that again, Asami, do you hear me?”

I don’t respond. I can’t. I can barely breathe. I keep my gaze on his shoes, my vision blurring. He reaches down and grips my jaw, turning my face up towards him. I flinch, but I don’t pull away. I know that would just make it worse. 

“I’m going to ask you a question, Asami,” he says slowly, fury coloring his face. “And I want you to tell me the truth. Where did you go the night Amon was meant to meet the Avatar on Aang Monument?”

Now I can’t breathe, but it’s for reasons unrelated to my father’s fist. My heart drops into my stomach. 

“What?” I choke out, trying to stall, trying to buy time, trying to  _ breathe _ , goddammit. 

“You heard me,” he growls. “Tell me the truth.”

I can get out of this. I have to. “I went to see her. I went to see the Avatar.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want Amon to take her bending.” If I can tell the truth enough, it could save me. “I wanted it for myself. I was selfish. I wanted it to wait until the Championship, so I could be there. So I could be part of it.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing,” I say, my voice broken as I struggle for breath. “Nothing, dad, I swear. I went to Air Temple Island and she wasn’t there. She must have run away from him, or hidden. I don’t know. She won’t talk to me about it.”

“Then why,” my father says, his voice low and terrifying as he leans in closer to me, his fingers tightening painfully on my jaw, “did it look like someone had been earthbending on the Monument when Amon arrived?”

_ Oh, Spirits. _

My mind whirls, racing, racing, racing. Breathe, Asami, you idiot. Fucking  _ think.  _ Think  _ faster _ . 

“I don’t know,” I manage. It’s not totally a lie, because I really don’t know what I’m about to say next. “Maybe she went there, and bent up the ground to make it look like a fight had happened, and then ran. I don’t know, please.”

“And why didn’t you come home that night?”

“I was waiting for her.” Just enough truth. Just enough to sell it. “She came back eventually, hours later, and when I asked about it, she wouldn’t say what had happened. But she seemed upset and really scared, so I stayed on the island to keep her company.”

I can’t tell if he believes me. His eyes are dark, his expression contorted in anger. My jaw aches under his grip. 

“Please, dad,” I say, tears welling up unbidden in my eyes. It’s a risk to let them. He hates to see me cry. It could make him more angry. “I don’t know what happened, I don’t know. I’m sorry I was so selfish, but I swear, I swear I don’t know.”

He releases me with a snarl, looking away from me. The tears have saved me this time. 

“Get out of my sight.”

I have no problem obeying, and I’m up the stairs and shutting my door, locking it behind me, before he has a chance to change his mind. 

When I see Korra the next day, it’s a relief. I visit her while she practices with Mako and Li-Jun. No Equalist raids tonight, so when the practice is over, it’s just she and I. We get dinner from a food cart down by the docks. Then I pull her into the back seat and let myself get lost in the taste of her mouth and the feeling of her strong hands on my back as I straddle her lap. I almost forget the night before until I pull my shirt off over my head and she stops cold. Her fingers touch just beneath my sternum with feather-soft delicacy. 

“Asami,” she said, and her voice is low and controlled. “What happened?”

God, I’m stupid. I had felt bruised, of course, but I hadn’t even thought to check if it was visible. I look down and see a hideous purpling blotch where my father hit me.

“Nothing,” I say, and slide off Korra’s lap, pulling my shirt on quickly. It’s a weak lie, and I don’t even bother to hope that she’ll believe it. 

She looks furious. “Was it your dad?”

“Korra-”

“ _ Was it? _ ”

“Yes.”

The muscles in her jaw flex as she looks away. “I’ll kill him.”

“I’m okay,” I say weakly. 

“No,” Korra says, looking back at me. There are tears in her eyes. “Asami, I’ll kill him for touching you.”

“You can’t.”

“Yes, I can,” Korra says. A short, humorless bark of laughter leaves her lips. “Oh, believe me, I can.”

“No,” I say, touching her jaw, turning her to look at me. “You’re the Avatar. You can’t just kill people.”

“I’m the Avatar, I  _ should _ just be able to kill people.”

“I don’t think that’s-”

“What’s the point?” Korra bursts out, the tears slipping down her cheeks. “What’s the point of me being the Avatar if I can’t even protect you from your own father, Asami?”

My chest aches. I shouldn’t have been so careless. I should have checked for bruises before putting Korra through this kind of suffering, this helpless pain. 

I take her face in my hands gently. The anger in her face is giving way to something else, a helplessness that makes her eyes wide. I wipe the tears from her cheeks with my thumbs and kiss the trails softly. 

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. 

She reaches up and holds my wrists, and for a moment we just sit in silence, our foreheads pressed together. Then she pulls away, opens the car door, and steps out. 

“I’ll be right back,” she tells me.

She makes good on that promise, returning a minute later with a globe of water hovering over one hand. She slides in and closes the door behind her and faces me. 

“Can I heal you?” she asks. 

My heart squeezes in my chest, and I nod, and pull my shirt off over my head again. She moves her hands in a liquid motion, pulling the water through the air like wet clay on a potter’s wheel. It begins to shine a bright blue. When she presses it to my skin, it’s warm and comforting. It feels strangely alive. 

I watch her face as she works. She looks serious, concentrated, her hands moving slowly to keep the water shifting. The blue glow makes her eyes shine. I can feel the ache near my sternum subside little by little, making it easier to breathe. I didn’t realize how much pain I’d been in until suddenly it isn’t there anymore. The bruise is barely a whisper when she finally stops, bending the water out through the window. 

I take her head in my hands and press a long kiss to her forehead. 

“Thank you,” I murmur. 

She lifts her head and kisses me softly on the mouth. When our lips part, she doesn’t pull back. She inhales deeply through her nose, seeming to steady herself. 

“Asami, I-” The words seem to catch in her throat, disappearing as her breath hitches. “I-” she tries again, with no success. 

My heart is suddenly beating very hard, and I kiss her again. She doesn’t try to speak after that. I hope she knows that I already know. It terrifies me, but I already know. 

I know because I also have something on the tip of my tongue most days, a secret that might break me if I say it out loud. I have to tell her the truth. I have to tell her that I’m an Equalist. I know I have to tell her. I want to tell her. I want to be honest for the first time in my miserable life. I had planned to tell her tonight, knowing that we didn’t have a raid to stop or a match to occupy our time, but my father’s fist and his sudden, terrifying awareness of my whereabouts the night Korra was meant to fight Amon have strangled my courage. If he knew, or had his suspicions, about where I was that night, about where I had gone, what else could he know? What else would he be able to discern if I were to tell Korra the truth? He has nearly broken my bones in his fits of aimless rage. What would he do to me if he were to find out that I betrayed our cause?

My cowardice keeps me silent. I will tell her soon, I promise myself even as I feel the razor’s edge slice my feet, even as I feel the noose tighten.


End file.
